Review Summary: Beautiful for a die-hard fan of the show, as well as anybody asking "What's LOST?"
As LOST’s sixth and final season nears it’s end, the tradition of releasing the previous season’s soundtrack continues with selections from Season 5. LOST is known for it’s incredible quality for a television show, including the astounding music. Michael Giacchino has always known how to strike viewers’ empathy and fear in all the right places at all the right times, and he’s never been better at it than now.
LOST soundtracks have offered more emotion, higher intensity, and even funnier track titles with each season, and Season 5 is no exception. The soundtrack kicks off perfectly with “Making Up for Lost Time,” a rendition of the character theme for Benjamin Linus. The track is the first example of Giacchino’s incredible talent to fill the listener with reflective emotion and anxiety at the same time which is found throughout the soundtrack. One of the best aspects of this soundtrack is the unpredictability, which was not often found in the music of earlier seasons. This season introduces many new character and situational themes that are completely fresh from past season soundtracks, the most notable being the Sawyer and Juliet theme, “La fleur.”
Perhaps the best thing that happens here is “The Incident.” As the season’s climax unfolds in the episode of the same name, tension is built by Giacchino’s symphony while characters desperately try to solve the problem of an uncontrolled pocket of energy being released. A sudden change of pacing indicates the point at which one character (yes, I will try to avoid spoilers for anybody still trying to start at Season 1) meets great peril. An absolutely beautiful, epic melody near the end of the track makes the scene unforgettable and can bring tears to almost anyone’s eyes as the character loses grip on their lover’s hand and plunges into the darkness of a ravine.
The soundtrack closes just as great as it started with “Jacob’s Stabber,” introducing Jacob’s theme as well as making such a brilliantly mysterious use of the symphony that a listener who has never seen the show would be able to tell that something completely new and shocking is being revealed to the audience. Like the first track, “Jacob’s Stabber” also ventures into Ben’s theme, this time more sympathetically as viewers watch the tightly composed character break down under the frustration he’s been holding in for years.
The beauty of this soundtrack is that it’s the perfect addition to the collection of an obsessive LOST fan, yet it can also be excellent, original instrumental music for any listener who’s never seen so much as a scene of the show. Even those who don’t usually find soundtracks interesting would find something impressive here. This music is a medium for emotions.
Best Tracks:
Making Up for Lost Time
The Science of Faith
Together or Not Together
La fleur
Alex in Chains
The Incident
Jacob’s Stabber
