ZIDANE - A 21ST CENTURY PORTRAIT (OST)

"Zidane:a 21st Century Portrait" has expectedly some low, boring moments, but memorable, standout ones as well.

Soundtracks never really were my thing, although I love when music is well placed in movies, being a movie nerd. But I never bought nor got any soundtrack or original score of a picture. I had to make an exception for this little, surprising gem, "Zidane: A Twentieth Century Portrait"'s soundtrack, written and executed by Post-Rock legends Mogwai. I'm not at all a soccer fan, but I used to be one thus I have a decent knowledge about the sport, and I can easily remember this player as a great one. As far as Mogwai are concerned, this album is better than a few of their actual studio albums in my opinion.

The music is remindful of earlier Mogwai albums such as "Come On Die Young", because of it's "slowcore" influences. However on that album there were vocals, in that case pretty a disappointing addiction to the music in my opinion, while this album is completely instrumental. The music itself is completely mellow, no strong build ups, no sonic explosions, just mellow songs, that have surprisingly catchy and easy melodies. The atmosphere thus is as well very calm, meditative, but also, like it is usual of Mogwai, a bit melancholic and sad.

"Zidane.." has many memorable moments that I enjoyed thoroughly: the two parts of "Black Spider" and "Terrific Speech" have a beautiful tone and memorable melodies that give quite a good atmosphere. However, some moments were dull and boring, especially the last track, the Untitled twenty three minute piece, that is extremely monotonous and just did not appeal to me at all. I also sense the sort of inconsistency there is in many Mogwai albums: the first half is good, the second half most of the time is very forgettable. This also has happened, at least for me, with "Hardcore Will Never Die", "The Hawk Is Howling", and especially "Come On Die Young". Now, "Zidane" is just the same, and my level of enjoyment as a whole of this album is pretty much equal to the mentioned albums, which I found barely decent.

I did not expect much from this album, but it turned out to have some standout points, and some lower ones as well, like predicted. But I overall thought it was a pleasurable experience, maybe too long, or too boring in some points. It could have been better, but I'm not complaining.

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