Dagny Taggart runs Taggart Transcontinental, the largest remaining railroad company in America. She is drawn to industrialist Henry Rearden, whose super-strength metal alloy, Rearden Metal, holds the promise that innovation can overcome the slide into anarchy. Using the untested Rearden Metal, they rebuild the critical Taggart rail line in Colorado and pave the way for an oil titan to feed the flame of a new American Renaissance. Dagny and Rearden discover the design of a revolutionary motor based on static electricity - in an abandoned engine factory - more proof to the sinister theory that the "men of the mind" (thinkers, industrialists, scientists, artists, and other innovators) are "on strike" and vanishing from society...

I have no idea what the above synopsis is all about, but it all sounds rather dull. Thankfully, I'm not reviewing the movie, but the soundtrack by Elia Cmiral.

This score has a patriotic backbone, the sort of music you'd expect in an ass-whooping American movie about a platoon of soldiers sent on a suicide mission, while at the same time bonding as a team. This is big and bold when it comes to emotions and it works much better than I was expecting.

Over this album's 22 tracks, representing just over 40 minutes of music, Cmiral manages to reach inside your very soul and brings out many emotions.

Tracks like 'Finding the Investors' reminded me of the best moments from scores for games like Modern Warfare 2. This has, in equal measure pumping, moving, atmospheric tracks as well as beautiful themes.

The soundtrack to Atlas Shrugged: Part 1 was a wonderful surprise.

9

Darren Rea