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McCreary's connection to Abrams has already yielded the expected comparisons between the composer's early career and that of Michael Giacchino, who also enjoyed significant success on television productions before using his knack for creativity and style to storm the feature realm. With 10 Cloverfield Lane, McCreary positions himself well to make that jump to major feature projects, and enthusiasts of his intellectually interesting approach to his assignments have to be thrilled by this ascendance. As one would expect, McCreary likely over-thought the music for 10 Cloverfield Lane, adding layers of intelligence probably unnecessary for a rather typical psychological horror venture. Anyone looking for relationships between this score and Giacchino's one massive end titles cue from Cloverfield will find few similarities, as the immense Giacchino composition made no attempt to hide its intent to pay tribute to the massive monster epics of yesteryear. The general formula of McCreary's score is more akin to a standard Christopher Young entry in the genre, offering a lovely and seductive main protagonist theme that exposes its romanticism at the beginning and end of the score's otherwise predictable horror fare. Stylistically, McCreary more directly takes inspiration from his mentor, Elmer Bernstein, and especially suspense master Bernard Herrmann, with a few nods to Jerry Goldsmith along the way. Not a bad collection of composers with which to make a comparison. McCreary's route to the finished product was overwrought, however, the composer hiring four ensembles ranging from a string quartet to a full orchestra and fusing them together with a variety of processed percussive-like sounds emanating from a warehouse environment, the solo vocals of his wife, and prominent performances on a Turkish stringed instrument and the Star Trek-favorite Blaster Beam. Some of these performances will fly right over the heads of casual listeners, and the whole affair seems like overkill given the end product, but the intellectual collector will appreciate the effort. In many cases, as in the distinctly foreign Turkish yayli tambur representing the average American heroine of the tale, the instrumental choices are intentionally counterintuitive, and that may bother or confuse some listeners.

Against that eerie sound for the lead protagonist in 10 Cloverfield Lane, McCreary balances a short, whining, dissonant violin motif for the physically imposing human villain, again playing with audience expectations. Its major performance ("Howard") is laced with the female vocals you'd rather expect to hear in the heroine's material. Fortunately, the main theme in the two "Michelle" cues is very strong regardless of its somewhat bizarre instrumentation, a rousing, undulating rhythmic motif often accompanying it to suggest the underlying panic of the situation. It is in this tonally satisfying rhythm that the Chris Young comparisons will emerge. As with many Young scores, the first six and final ten minutes of the score are anchored by this attractive theme, the last cue a suite that transitions into the "Howard" material in its midsection. Expect these passages to beckon you for repeat appreciation, as they espouse just the right qualities of lyricism and creepiness in conjunction with the unique instrumentation. The mass of the middle, horror portions of the score are competent, and they smartly incorporate fragments of the themes into their strikes and explosions of sound. Don't expect too many tonally accessible passages in these parts, however; much of it is quite unpleasant, even if the nearly perpetual layering of the Blaster Beam does fulfill your bass region fantasies. Aside from the curiosity that is the foreign tilt to the heroine's theme, you also have a failure in this score to shift from the horror/suspense mode into a convincing action mode, only the last portions of "Valencia" beginning to suggest the rebellious victories at hand. As such, the narrative of the score isn't quite as neatly wrapped as it might have been, the difference between "Michelle" and "The New Michelle" noticeable in volume and percussive thumping but not truly evolved to any degree. These quibbles aside, 10 Cloverfield Lane remains a truly engaging score that performs beyond most expectations. Originally released only digitally, the score's diverse instrumental palette demands a lossless presentation, and McCreary's own independent label eventually supplied a CD of the same digital soundtrack contents later in 2016. Explore that CD with confidence and an appreciation for the influences you'll hear from genre masters of yesteryear, and expect McCreary to follow a Giacchino trajectory before long as well, his talents too broad to remain confined to television forever.  ****   @Amazon.com: CD or Download

Total Time: 63:44