“Mad Max: Fury Road”, George Miller’s willfully insane orgy of dirt, fire, blood, and tons and tons of gasoline keeps giving audiences everywhere substantial actiongasms after being unleashed unto an unsuspecting world this past weekend. Alongside the film’s many lauded elements —including the breakneck, unrelenting forward momentum (which we explore in greater detail here) and the emphasis on practical stunts over CGI— is Dutch multi-instrumentalist Junkie XL’s sublime and energetic score, a vital component to Miller’s triumphant return to the Mad Max universe.
Junkie XL’s score, which you can hear in full on Spotify, finds a delicate balance between percussion-driven action and a striking orchestral score that resembles old school Hollywood epics. If you’d like to skip directly to the high-octane music heard in the latest trailers, which sounds like a hive of bumblebees are making passionate love to a parking lot full of timpani drums, check out the brief but effective “Spikey Cars.” “Let Them Up” is a good choice to experience the soundtrack’s more tender and uplifting moments, and if you’d like to get a taste of the score’s wide range in a relatively short time, check out “Immortan’s Citadel.” You can listen to the entire soundtrack below: