There are two central themes at play here; what I call the 'heroic' theme and the 'danger' theme. One is a sweeping and emotional theme that represents Thor and the other a percussive action styling that makes up the basis of all the action tracks, or whenever danger is present. The soundscape works off of these two sounds and Doyle will usually clash the two to create momentous cues that not only are intense but emotionally gripping. A lot of this comes towards the end though. The beginning of the album is more dedicated to setting up the characters, setting and story. Now you may say "well that's obvious." But honestly I have listened to many scores that seem to forget that they too need to set up character, setting and story. Gladly Doyle's experience does not let that slip by him. Now that the score is firmly grounded he can create all the variations he wants and it will still feel like a growing continuation of where the journey started. Our first battle cue is "Frost Giant Battle" which has a slightly different feel than say "The Compound", and I love that you can differentiate that these two action scenes take place in different locations solely by the music. In the early cues that percussive intensity completely washes out the heroism factor for just a moment and we forget our main character is a God. As the album concludes the hero theme comes back into play and grows and grows. The full meshing of the percussive action with the sweeping heroism comes with "Thor Kills The Destroyer" and now we have our hero back.

The score is perfectly structured which really allowed me to get completely taken away by it. Patrick Doyle's themes are grand without ever being over the top and the simplicity in the melodies allows the music to reach amazing heights. I think Patrick Doyle has just proven himself to be quite a formidable talent in the realm of blockbuster score composers. The fact that the music is a symphonic score really gives it an organic weight that we don't hear too often. While I absolutely love synths and electronics in scores one can't deny that everyone is using them nowadays. It's really refreshing to have a big score such as this that doesn't rely solely on synths for an intense sound. Patrick Doyle's score pounds with thunderous success as he breaths life into Thor and gives us what is sure to be one of the most memorable scores of the year.