'Legion' is easily my favorite soundtrack of the year thus far. If you're logging that sort of thing.

Note: I just noticed this draft has been sitting around since the first half of this year! I think I remembered it primarily because I was listening to the Blade Runner 2049 soundtrack earlier this week and was struck by how great it was when matched against the visuals, and how flat so much of it felt when it was just left to stand on its own merits. Anyway, it's probably better I didn't publish this way back when, because I don't think the Bandcamp page was live at the time, so the only placeI could have directed you was iTunes—where I bought it from—since I don't think it existed anywhere else at the outset. Anyway.

The Legion soundtrack is like a lovely mixture of Vangelis, Pink Floyd and ‘60s Mod. And it works even better than most, since the instrumentals can mostly stand as songs on their own and not just snippets of music to match a 30 second scene or transition.*

Which isn’t to say these compositions didn’t perfectly, perfectly, fit the visuals in the series they were created to complement. They did. They just happen to accomplish the unusual feat of a soundtrack album also being engaging outside its prime reason for existing. Most that do this tend to skew more on the atmospheric side, but for whatever reason Russo’s work here also has a weird prog sensibility that puts it in a slightly different swim lane than you’d expect it to occupy.

You can’t just listen passively to Legion. It digs in and creates its own space within you whether you want it to or not.



*There are a few “snippets” but they act as welcome interludes in the album’s sequencing. Actual interludes!