• Review by Kaya Savas - July 1, 2018

Season 7 of Game Of Thrones was something that slipped by for review back when it aired, but as the series has come to its conclusion it’s time to revisit it before reviewing season 8 for the sake of completeness. The penultimate season of Game Of Thrones has some of the series’ most engaging music even if much of it is surface level.

While Game Of Thrones was already narratively derailing in season 7, there were still some grand character moments and set pieces that allowed Ramin to massage the music into interesting directions. We get a lot of our favorite themes here to offer some broad strokes, while much of the nuance starts to go out the window. The show’s writing at this point had devolved into mostly formulaic arcs, and the show required Ramin to get much larger with the music. We get lots of percussion, some use of chorus, and a lot of rhythmic builds.

The music is still very much Game Of Thrones though, and it’s extremely satisfying to see the thematic material find its aggressive side. We feel propulsion and weight behind the music, even if character nuance and emotional undercurrents are sacrificed for spectacle.

Season 7 is the “generic action” season of Game Of Thrones, and the music sort of falls into that mold. Ramin’s score does a decent job of holding the ship together as leaks start to spring, and for that it makes for some fun entertainment. The depth and nuance of the series and the music is long gone at this point as we barrel into Season 8.

• 4/5