The Daily Spin, June 4
The Blasting Company | Over The Garden Wall OST
Welcome back to the Daily Spin, the series in which I review 365 albums during 2023.
Each album will be given a rating on a scale from 0 to 10. You can look at the entire set here. Additionally, you can check out a list of my favorite song from each album right here.
If you want to suggest an album, good news! You can do so right here!
Album: Over The Garden Wall (OST) (2016)
Artist: The Blasting Company
Link:
First and foremost: If you haven’t yet seen Over The Garden Wall, it is very much worth a watch. I won’t say much about the actual content because it’s so worth watching without any knowledge of what you’re getting into, but I really do think it’s an incredible little piece of television, particularly if you’re a fan of animation like Gravity Falls, Adventure Time, or Regular Show.
Onto the soundtrack - it’s so good, y’all. It’s hard for me to review instrumentals, at times, because there’s not always a good word for the frisson. It’s hard to articulate the way that one of the tracks from the Deathly Hallows score gives me goosebumps literally every time I hear it, the same way I struggle to make clear just how profound the effect of Joel P West’s Short Term 12 soundtrack is on my mind even today - but I’ll do my best.
Considering the show - and again, trying to keep light on the spoilers - I think this is a really excellent effort. It captures the whimsy of the younger brother, who spends most the entire show seeing things with clearly rose-colored glasses, in a view we, the viewers, are privy to as a shining example of childlike wonderment. Yet, despite this, there’s no shortage of deeper and darker tones - some calling to the older brother’s sense of unease and yes, fear, but moreover calling to the inherent nature of the forest. There are deep shadows reaching to lay their dark fingers on our protagonists, and this soundtrack captures both the heart-wrenching anxiety of being trapped in a space unknown and the excitement of exploring, the inherent freedom of a world undiscovered.
Rating: 8.6/10
Best Tracks: Prelude; The Beast Is Out There
Worst Tracks: Halloween Halftime