Reviewing the soundtrack for a film you’ve yet to see is always an interesting proposition. It’s not the most ideal situation, as the music is meant to (obviously) provide emotional and dramatic heft to what you’re seeing on the screen. Certain scores can undoubtedly stand on their own as compositions that need no visual context: Star Wars, The Dark Knight, To Kill A Mockingbird, North By Northwest.

But others tend to blend together a bit and need the film for which they were created to fully make sense. I suspect that this soundtrack for The Expendables falls into this latter category. Given the previews and reviews that I’ve seen for this movie, this score seems as bombastic, sweeping and soaring as the visuals would demand. Lots of dramatic swells, full-on orchestral dynamic movements, pounding drums, driving trumpets, and swooping strings…it is good stuff, by and large.

And I imagine that it probably fits the film perfectly. But outside of the film, I don’t know that there’s much that sets the music apart on its own. I suppose if you’re a fan of Brian Tyler’s previous work (Rambo, Eagle Eye, Constantine, among many other soundtracks) this might be of interest to you. Other than that, I can’t really see this appealing to anyone other than a fan of the film itself.