These instrumental players for Oppenheimer are often applied in pulsation formations encouraged to sonically represent Nolan's painstaking atomic visual effects. The rhythms never become intoxicating or enticingly prolonged in a Phillip Glass sense, but their varying propulsion keeps the score interesting. The composer is proud of the significant use of changing tempos within individual cues, including the 21 alterations of pace within "Can You Hear the Music" alone that took a reported three days to record. (This claim is rather odd given that the whole score was supposedly recorded in five days.) The balance between tonal accessibility for the drama of the characters and the dissonance of the terrifying ramifications of the nuclear fission (and arguably the communist connections) is really well handled by Göransson in this score. He manages to create tension without outright annoyance, never truly losing the neo-classical touch inherent in the strings despite the increasing placement of the synthesizers at the forefront. Their balance is very nicely achieved and makes for an immersive listening experience at times on album. His mix is often compelling, the use of solo strings or quartets not as dry and imposingly sterile as you hear in equivalent works. The synthesizers are actually surprisingly expansive in the soundscape, providing a slight fantasy element as necessary for the fission's implications. Still, the end result of the composer's approach diminishes the clarity of his thematic constructs. Despite the existence of several recurring ideas, there is no obvious narrative development throughout, the themes never guiding the story to the extent needed to be succeed at their task. Instead, they simply waft in and out, often overwhelmed by surrounding activity, which Göransson confesses was intentional. Though these core ideas do have some merit in concept, their usage in the score is thus so diffused in various guises that they cease to serve the narrative any more than the basic style of the performance would supply on its own. The main theme is present throughout the score but doesn't have the appreciable impact it needs for the character, even at the end. Rather, the sudden cutoff to "Oppenheimer" is an obnoxious way to conclude the album, a rather cheap technique betraying the intelligence of what preceded it.

For most listeners, Oppenheimer will seem either themeless or monothematic, Göransson's main identity for Oppenheimer himself rather elusive in how it's often buried in other activity. It's a structure of descending pairs, six notes overall with significant alterations around it. Developing on harp early in "Fission," this idea is a bit better teased at 4:40 on strings. The theme is highlighted starting at 0:42 into "Can You Hear the Music" in accelerating, rhythmic form. Only tentative chords remain at 0:16 into "A Lowly Shoe Salesman," though the theme returns on a warmer string section in the latter half of the cue. The descending pairs waft through "Quantum Mechanics" under meandering violin lines, similar techniques slowed for the more ambient "Gravity Swallows Light." The theme offers some tonal determination to the middle of "Manhattan Project" and swells to a ballsy synthetic prominence at 1:22 into "American Prometheus" before diminishing to solo violin over wind-like ambience. Its chords are barely evident in slight tension during "Los Alamos," and the descending figures become elongated in phrasing at the outset of "Fusion" on harp over chopping cellos. Oppenheimer's theme opens "Colonel Pash" solemnly and guides the dissonance later in the cue, though it consolidates into a more determined and accessible rendition at 3:18. After being distorted at the outset of "Theorists" on synthesizers, the theme struggles on piano against the synthetic, percussive bomb-oriented material late in "Ground Zero," extends in phrasing with brass early in "Trinity," and returns amongst churning angst in the middle of "Power Stays in the Shadows." It accelerates into a nervous, prickly, synthetic motif at the start of "The Trial" but is countered by a dramatic, full version on strings in the middle of "Kitty Comes to Testify." In a somewhat tepid wrapping of the score, the main theme reprises its pensive mode on violin at 0:47 into "Destroyer of Worlds," though it's overwhelmed by synthetics with ominous force, and is attempted again at 0:14 into "Oppenheimer" on lower violin shades, where it is also usurped by synthetics. Not unexpectedly given the plot, there is practically no closure to this theme. Of more interest, though, is Göransson's choice to very rarely afford any sympathy to it, either, producing a rather cold and clinical musical personality for the character.

If listeners have difficulty determining the outlines of Göransson's main theme for the titular character in Oppenheimer, then the constructs of the other motifs in the score may be even more obtuse. The composer's handling of Oppenheimer's wife, Kitty, is less than appealing but does offer some more hopeful tonalities at times. Ascending phrasing defines this more meandering identity, which debuts fully at 1:10 into "Meeting Kitty" on cello and builds with synthetics into a bubbly romantic piece before devolving into grating rhythmic blurting at the cue's end. Echoes of this material carry over to "Groves" with slight optimism, and they are faintly skittish on strings in "Dr. Hill" and sparse on piano early in "Kitty Comes to Testify." As this theme dissolves over the course of the picture, few will even notice. A bit more successful is Göransson's musical representation of the darker forces in the score, if only because of the contrast that their brass and synthetic renderings provide. This "consequences motif" uses rising minor pairs from key that are introduced in the middle of "Fusion." The idea shifts to a different progression as a rhythm on brass in "Colonel Pash" and is elongated in the second half rhythms of "Theorists." This material devolves into a quietly thumping rhythm of menace in "Ground Zero" and drives piano and synth movements late in "Trinity." It transforms into a longer line with evocative and pensive character in "What We Have Done" and generates an uneasy rhythm on cello in "Something More Important." The composer seemed intent to avoid writing outright horror or action music for the most frightening scenes in the film, Nolan perhaps opting early for silence as an appropriate conclusion to the building suspense of certain scenes. That strategy is effective and helps keep the overall score for Oppenheimer largely consistent from start to end. While there is a fair amount of dissonance in the second and third acts, Göransson keeps the sound of his recording palatable as a background listening experience on album. On the other hand, the lengthy, 94-minute presentation offers few tonally engaging highlights, from which perhaps ten to fifteen minutes of outwardly positive music could be assembled. The long running time of the album isn't necessary a detriment here because this kind of music relies upon its ambient mood rather than a narrative hindered by slow portions of underscore. The end result remains consistently interesting and rarely disturbing, but it takes you on no journey in and of itself.  ***   @Amazon.com: CD or Download