Suspiria [Original Motion Picture Soundtrack]

Its ballet scenes are climactic, cathartic centerpieces, dramatically illustrating the power of sound to move, to manipulate, to conjure. Yorke’s score is a shrine to that dark power.

It achieves the toughest task for a soundtrack--to maintain interest independent of the images it was built to accompany and accentuate--with impressive ease.

Yorke’s job here is to maximise the impact of the film through sound, something he does masterfully whenever employed. ... The film itself may have done some harm to Guadagnino’s reputation as a defining director of this era. The soundtrack, however, will do no damage to Yorke’s credentials as a composer.

Despite avoiding it for a period of time, Yorke came through with his best solo album yet. He assuredly created a multi-layered horror soundtrack that serves as an engrossing confection of new musical landscapes in its own right while being essential to the film’s effect.

In its minimalist opacity and Vantablack depths, it’s the polar opposite of Goblin’s playfully neon-hued approach, and it’s in going to that extreme that Yorke has made Suspiria his own.

It’s to Yorke’s credit that the sense of foreboding he conjures, whether in the discordant Volk or the more elegant Olga’s Destruction (Volk Tape), manages to be so evocative even without Guadagnino’s visuals.

From micro passages like the 30-second ‘An Audition’ to the 14-minute swell of ambient vocal track ‘A Chorus Of One’, he successfully contrasts optimism and tenderness with hopelessness and terror, with an impressive breadth of emotion being evoked across each track.

At its best you're reminded of Yorke's eminent skill: a fluency in dark, otherworldly romance that makes the alien sound familiar. [Dec 2018, p.106]

Thom Yorke's Suspiria might not be to everyone's taste--but it feel enough, for now. [Dec 2018, p.20]

“Suspirium” is a radium-glow piano ballad that would have fit in nicely on Radiohead’s most recent album; the jazzy soul of “Unmade” and the trip-hop shiver of “Has Ended” are even more surprising, carrying welcome echoes of Yorke and co.’s brilliant Amnesiac-era B-sides. These tunes are vintage Yorke, and they make you wish he’d written more of them for Suspiria. At least until you hear the second half of this record, where the song-songs thin out in favor of even weirder electronic buzzes.

A handful of tracks stand out, and are among Yorke’s best solo work.

Suspiria benefits from Yorke’s attention to atmosphere. But there’s no getting around the fact that perhaps half of the soundtrack is unmemorable and (out of context, at least) incredibly dull. There’s a right way to experience this music, and that’s by viewing the film, just as Yorke intended.

Yorke's minimalist fragility fits the bill entirely. [Dec 2018, p.89]

Altogether, Suspiria is an appropriate accompaniment to the film, generating fear and discomfort as much by what's presented by Yorke as what's left to the imagination.

It's not quite the complete package of course. Like most music composed for cinema, it suffers without the images, sound that exists to enhance is often lacking when left alone. It doesn't lack anywhere near as much as most scores do though, suggesting Yorke might match his bandmate after all.

As gorgeous and misstep-free as it is, the soundtrack risks a bit of that souvenir, collector’s item feel native to score-based soundtracks. That being said, it’s nowhere near as padded-out as those typically are. While melodies and tones recur, track to track, it plays out with an ear toward immersion.