Legendary producer Steve Albini, Tim Midyett, and Alison Chesley have come together to score Girl on the Third Floor, possibly the most metal film score since Mandy.
The film follows Don Koch (played by former WWE wrestler Phil “CM Punk” Brooks) who buys a fixer-upper house in the suburbs to escape a life of crime and debauchery. As Don renovates the house, it slowly turns on him, conjuring haunting, horrific apparitions.
When working on the house, Don blasts music from punk and metal heavy hitters like Neurosis and Converge. The score borrows from these to create its palette. But while the soundtrack is fast-paced and unrelenting, Albini, Midyett, and Chesley’s score is much slower. Acoustic guitar and electric guitar feedback ease the viewer into the visceral depravity that lies ahead before slow, crunchy riffs filter through. Chesley’s cello then appears overtop in droning despair. The score continues like this, building in volume and intensity before it finally lets loose in a chaotic cacophony. Ultimately, the score comes to inhabit this possessed house; as the house spits bile and unleashes its vengeful spirits, the score’s piercing wails and guttural groans join in.
The score feels very much like a single prolonged track, like one giant crescendo. It is no surprise, then, that it is even more effective as a standalone piece of music. There aren’t enough contiguous sequences in the film in which the music can build, breaking up its continuity and resetting its momentum (as compared to a film like Hagazussa, with its prolonged scenes of nothing but nature and music). The nearly hour-long release suffers no such fate, letting its hideous noise slowly grind down the listener.
Albini, Midyett, and Chesley’s ugly score will be off-putting for most listeners, but for those daring few it is a perfectly vile experience.
