Search - Chris Vrenna :: American Mcgee's Alice (Score)

A score that sells a game.

J. Cavacini | Coplay, PA Corporate States of America | 09/17/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Much like the smile without a cat, this is the score without a movie.This score by Chris Vrenna is a masterpiece of atmospheric mood. It contains sounds you know and sounds you hope never to meet in the real world, all used musically or dramatically to enhance the experience of the computer game. The thing is, you might just want to have the music and skip the game.If you are in love with electronic music (and here I do NOT refer to dance, techno or rave music) you may find this CD to be one of the most important of your collection. Especially if you like film scores, atmospheric and ambient works and general creepiness.Don't be put off by descriptive words such as "gothic," "creepy" or "ambient." There is actually excellent orchestration and structure to be found here, making this stand as a film score and not a crude modern art performance piece.If you're one of the people who bought the Quake game just for Trent Reznor's music (and liked it, but thought it would have been nice if it were more thematic and musical) you should get this disc, too. Hey, these two artists worked together in the past, so it is no surprise that if you like the one, you may also like the other.My appreciation of this CD lead me to purchase Chris Vrenna's solo project "Tweaker: the attraction to all things uncertain." If you like Alice, you may well like Tweaker, though they are surely of different upbringings.This disc is surely one of the most important in my collection. Make it part of yours."

As atmospheric as it gets - and MORE than the game had!

Mr Vess | Cracow | 11/20/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I absolutely loved the thrilling, atmospheric score in the chillingly ambient game, and one of the first things I did upon completing it was extracting it from the game's libraries and burning it as audio tracks to CDRs (it took two discs), to be able to appreciate it anywhere where there was a CD player. :) Some time later I heard about a planned release of the soundtrack and I was hesitant - I was sure it would simply be a clipped version of what I already made for my use on my own, i.e. just some of the tracks from the game recorded on a CD. As it turns out, it's much, much more! The music is expanded, partially remixed, and yes, it actually sounds considerably better. It certainly is worth buying. A truly magnificent collection of excellent, ambient music. I think even the greatest film music composers of our time, people of Jerry Goldsmith's class, would be impressed by it. Too bad this isn't a double CD release, with *every single* track from the game, but perhaps there is more to come... :)"

The power of what is left unsaid

Jack Kirven | Charlotte, NC | 12/26/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"ok, so this is a soundtrack for a game... how much can it really have in it?? you might be surprised -- the aspect of this music that most interests me is not what the music says directly, but the moods and emotions it conjures indirectly. there is some excrutiatingly cunning use of sampling in this music, and the context of these sounds provides unexpected variations: familiar sounds placed within the dark, brooding landscape of the music become terrifying. even if i had not played the game i would recognize that the familiar had dissolved into the demented. chris vrenna does amazing work, so i'm not shocked to see that he has accomplished these things with his music -- what surprised me (pleasantly) is that he would go to the trouble of evoking so many colors in a soundtrack for a game. he really should be commended for this project."