Original Motion Picture Score for The Virgin Suicides

Suicides offers music that's even softer and more blurred around the edges than the band's previous efforts (Moon Safari and Premiers Symptomes), deftly meshing Bacharach-influenced progressions with martini lounge instrumentation for a mix that's retro-futuristic and smooth as, well, air.

A mesmerizing 13-track suite that ebbs and flows with a continuous hallucinatory lushness from start to finish.

Hardly a major work; several tracks recycle the elegiac main theme, and you miss the occasional vocal that enhanced Moon Safari.

It's synthesized, as expected, but not in a new wave way. Organs breathe a heavy, gloomy sigh through 13 tracks... It's beautiful and I'm sold.

Air's score darkens their brand of soft, introspective melodies with wavering pianos, funereal organs, and disembodied synth loops, and the resulting soundscapes often have a spacey, Pink Floyd-ish quality.

The Virgin Suicides score comes on like Pink Floyd without the bombast, or Twin Peaks without the awkward goofiness and desktop production. [#26, p.50]

Sounds as if it was recorded in a hermetically sealed ballroom by a group of misanthropic, jazz-obsessed weird-beards.

Though the record does aim for the same kind of prog-rock atmospherics as their earlier releases, Air have managed to alter their sound this time out, drawing from a wider array of rock influences, instead of limiting their scope to Perrey and Kingsley.... Of course, The Virgin Suicides has its dry moments, but surprisingly, they're few and far between. For the most part, the album showcases Godin and Dunckel's dramatically improved songwriting skills.

A haunting through line of notes that impact wonderfully in stirring the darker recesses of the mind.

It's clear that Air didn't spend a whole lot of time on these tracks, since most of the music here revolves around a couple of musical motifs and none are as densely complex as their previous work. However, this reductionist approach serves its purpose and, although conceptually a far cry from Moon Safari -- for obvious reasons -- The Virgin Suicides nonetheless fits well within Air's modus operandi.

There are elements missing and sometimes out of place on the disc.... Godin and Dunckel, however, succeed in interpreting the film's dreamy '70s vibe and creating sonics with appropriate drama and cinematic flair.

The duo deliver an evocative, mostly instrumental set that effectively serves their inspiration, as well as their fanbase.