Sharp as Flint, notes as it's Bond.

As much as I'm a huge fan of music and, if truth be told, an equally big supporter of all things gaming, I'm probably the first to admit that when soundtracks for games are conceived they're usually a case of 2 + 2 = 2

No, come back, don't be put off by the videogame mention so early in the post - as much as it's to do with that, the end result is so far removed as to really exist stupidly easily on it's own.

You have two distinct styles in general use.

One is to find lots of tracks that are currently "hip" (or "thigh" or whatever the in phrase is) and pile them together with no thought for melding any sort of aural experience together - it's messy and mass-market and that suits them fine.

The other is to get a "name" in to add a few touches to something pretty generic - then banking the project on people picking up on this and only afterwards realising the sound is far less of that person than they'd expected.

It seems though, if this one inventive swallow can be deemed a musical summer, that the time may be a-changing.

The start of April will see the release of Splinter Cell 3: Chaos Theory - a game with stealth, guns, gadgets and bad guys - you know the score on that front by now. If you love that sort of thing this is set to be a cracker and if not,well, you'll really not care.

I digress though. This is about the music.

Amon Tobin

Ahead of the game (as it turns out, a spot-on phrase in more ways than one) they're releasing Amon Tobin's Splinter Cell 3: Chaos Theory OST

To use a fairly standard ploy of mine, imagine the bastard offspring of David Holmes and Photek, with the swagger of Sabers of Paradise in their prime. If those references don't mean much to you and, due to the musical anorak I am, they probably won't then think of 50 minutes of prime suspense, rattling chases, ambient builds and twisted basslines. Some of the drum beats are speed-fuelled lunacy, yet somehow always never straying too far from moody atmosphere.

There are a good few readers of this motley Blog that would get a kick out of this I think - this would work on the slopes as much as in the city. No matter how enigmatic and cinematic it gets there's never a time that it doesn't still have you gripped by the lapels, threatening to get it's mate round.

Imagine Michael Caine as Harry Palmer in The Ipcress File, only with optic fibre spy camera or radio jamming cuban-heel. Think of Bond, but with him having a home studio he jams on whilst waiting for MoneyPenny to bring round the latest white labels.

Flint in a Ninja suit ? Probably.

This is some seriously sharp stuff and, as an instrumental album, probably one of the best I've heard in a long, long time for creating an atmosphere and holding it over it's entire length without being repetitive or losing the plot at some point.

As a videogame soundtrack it's a revelation.........

Still unsure ?

Try this review over at inthemix.com.au for a few more words than I'm managed.