The trilogy ends with a quiet, reverent piano cover of “Life on Mars?”, the world-beating ballad by Reznor’s late friend and mentor David Bowie. Reznor and Ross even work covers into the show’s repertoire. While the bangers largely vanish by the time the quieter, more ruminative Volume 2 comes around, they return in a big way with Volume 3’s leadoff track, “Doomsday Prepper,” which comes fully loaded with scuzzy Nine Inch Nails guitar. “Nun With a Motherf*&*ing Gun” pulses and clangs like a reimagined version of Nitzer Ebb’s “Join in the Chant,” while “Objects in Mirror (Are Closer Than They Appear)” and “Kattle Battle” share a sleazy, slithering bass groove. It also starts off the soundtracks with a bang rather than a simmer, a mood maintained through much of Volume 1. It’s the theme music Nine Inch Nails fans have been waiting for them to deliver. The original song is resilient enough to mutate in this way, showing off the duo’s skill with leitmotif as well as their considerable range. Its melodic structure recurs throughout the score, in the gently acoustic “Watch Over This Boy” at the end of Volume 1, the jazz throwback “Nostalgia Blues” on Volume 2 (co-written and performed by John Beasley), and the major-key weightlessness of “The Waiting Sky” on Volume 3. T he horror-movie atmospherics of Quake are the closest reference point for Watchmen’s first and strongest track, “How the West Was Really Won.” The show’s unofficial theme music-it recurs repeatedly in the series’ most frightful moments, including the ripped-from-the-comic image of a gigantic alien squid in the ruins of Manhattan-it’s the sound of Reznor and Ross going full John Carpenter, with a simple synth hook that seems to swallow up more of the world around you with each repetition.
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