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The methodology for Law Abiding Citizen is rather straight forward, and if it reminds you of how Hans Zimmer and his army of clones would have handled the picture, then cue up yet another piece of evidence supporting the complaints from film score collectors that Tyler has become an affordable proxy for the Remote Control sound. He pre-recorded his percussion and synthesizer lines and then assembled a roughly 50-piece orchestra consisting of strings and low brass. The strings alternate in application between the standard, largely harmonic brooding in the bass region by their lower members and the more aggressive, dissonant movements of the violins. Brass, led by French horns, simply boosts the resonance factor, supplying muscle. Most of the score presents some variation on standard action ostinatos or tense, dissonant anticipation of the next stinger. Tyler's performances on percussion are nicely layered but are also somewhat generic. Both piano and guitar supply interludes of contemplation that try, with only marginal success, to suggest echoes of the expected sounds of the typical suburban household. The guitar also seems to extend into the role of rhythm-setter at times. Other contributions include a variety of sampled effects typical to Tyler's library of sounds, whispy electronic swooshes or prickly, chime-like sounds dancing around in the background of several cues to give the score a contemporary edge. Tyler himself is credited as the vocal performer, though the distant vocalizations in support of a cue like "Designs" sound distinctly female. His thematic foundation for Law Abiding Citizen is based upon a multifaceted idea that churns in the bass region with a rhythm that seems to represent the momentary sense of movement in the picture (or the determination of the assassin) and a rather mundane theme of two similar lines dominated by a familiar opening four-note progression. This theme is almost omnipresent in the score, performed by either strings or piano (or simultaneously in "Predestined," among others) and does a pretty good job of wrapping the hazy atmosphere of the score into some semblance of a musical identity. When considered in sum, though, what Tyler wrote and recorded for Law Abiding Citizen is about as predictably boring as one could imagine. Like the similar scores provided by Graeme Revell and John Powell for Gray's previous films, Tyler's effort represents safely streamlined action/thriller music that makes very few attempts to reinvent the genre's expected sound. On album, the "CD on demand" and download product contains none of the film's prominent song placements (including Grand Funk Railroad's closing song) and is a consistent, basically sufficient listening experience with no strikingly individual highlights.  ***   @Amazon.com: CD or Download

Bias Check:

For Brian Tyler reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.2 (in 41 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.13 (in 19,673 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.

Total Time: 54:56