Composer: Yugo Kanno
Year (of original media): 2012
Genres (partial): Alternative Rock, Hard Rock, Electronic-Rock-Classical Fusion, Classical, Techno, Psytrance, Breakbeat, Dark Jazz, Dark Ambient, IDM, Illbient
Additional Info: Soundtrack for season one of the anime, the later seasons have their own soundtrack albums. Official release.
PSYCHO-PASS is an anime series that started in the early 2010s, its a very cool take on the police/detective anime genre, placing it in an updated and sleek cyberpunk universe in the near future, where cops basically have guns equipped with a dystopian social credits system. I feel that normally stories like this are told from the perspectives of common folks, revolutionaries, or even criminals, but PSYCHO-PASS flips the script, having it be from the perspective of law enforcement. Its a very cool show, and an anime with such a specific setting and theme, it needs an equally specific OST to really help push its universe and vibe, and this OST certainly nails it.
This is very much my kind of OST, I absolutely love OSTs with this very specific dark and suspenseful sound that fuses electronica, orchestral, and rock; its one of my favorite OST styles out there, and Kanno does it so incredibly well here. Hard electronic dance beats ranging between techno to breakbeats, combined with a bevvy of electronic bass-lines, synth leads, and sounds; it gives the music a really energetic and futuristic backing. These elements are then combined with amazing orchestral compositions, the OST is very string heavy, with strings playing notes from the highest to lowest octaves and everywhere in between; it has a very cinematic approach to melody/harmony/structure/arrangement as well; everything has this awesome tension and action sound, perfect for a suspense anime. The rock elements are amazing too, awesome riffs helping to define which songs are for the action, and which songs are for the suspense. Sometimes other instruments are included as well, such as piano.
The whole blend of everything gives this OST the exact sound it needs. Hard hitting dance beats and techy electronic elements give it the futuristic and urban edge, it conjures up thoughts of futuristic, yet a bit grimey, cities, with the dance grooves being the beat of the city. That combined with all of the cinematic stuff gives it all of the tension and suspense it needs for a soundtrack, especially for a show as tense as PSYCHO-PASS; and the guitar just makes it all the more action packed. This is far from the only thing that this OST offers though, as it has a lot of tricks and styles up its sleeves. For example, some tracks take these same ideas but slows them way down, into cool IDM slow jams, but still fully functioning tension cues, whilst still keeping that urban vibe. Some tracks also include acoustic guitar (with some of it being other instruments I believe, some of it sounds too worldly to be a guitar imo). The track Hanzai Yuugi is an excellent example of this slowed down formula, and such a cool mix of sounds, dark atmospheres, dissonant orchestral stabs, Middle Eastern sounding guitar, but then also stuff like 808 cowbells; its awesome and such a good example of how OSTs often combine many different genres into one song. Something that I really liked in the OST was the use of spoken dialogue in the music, it really reminds me of the soundtracks Taku Iwasaki does (and his OSTs are amazing, so that's certainly a good thing).
The OST isn't just electronic-rock-orchestral bangers, it also has a lot of very nice songs of other styles as well. There's full on orchestral songs here, ranging in intensity and emotion, with some of them sounding quite sad and contemplative. Some of these classical tracks have very full and lush compositions, whilst others are more sparse. At times tracks are harmonious, others more dissonant, and some evolving between the two as they progress. There's some arrangements of regular classical music on here as well which are very well done, and the traditional sound gives a nice contrast to the rest of the soundtrack. There's cool ambient/dark ambient songs on here too, I really love the specific sound tension cue dark ambient has, and its done in such a cool manner here. A mix of strings, deep bass pulses, slow tempos, electronic sound design, and often the inclusion of strings, guitar, heavy cinematics, and other elements (a pipe organ even makes an appearance here).
In addition to these styles discussed, there's some other stuff too, like a bit of dark jazz which is very cool, especially when mixed with the musical concepts established elsewhere in the OST. Some of the jazz tracks were more playful as well, whilst still keeping a serious feeling (if you watch dark/serious anime, then you'll get the vibe that I'm talking about). Some of the jazzy songs include other styles too, such as hip-hop rhythms, and sampling, giving it a really awesome sound. I love it when OSTs include urban elements, so the hip-hop elements were really cool. As commonplace with multi-CD OSTs, the first disk is more hard-hitting stuff, and the second disk is the more cinematic, downtempo, and lowkey stuff (but in this case, a lot of the jazz tunes are on this second disk as well). The second disk covers all of the same ideas as the first disk, just in a more subdued manner, better for quieter moments in the show.
Something that was especially enjoyable for me when giving this OST a deep listen was that I could hear a lot of stuff that I learned in university. A lot of the techniques we learned for how to make tension cues appear here, such as all of the droning, bass pulses, and mix of electronic and classical elements. There's lots of cool stuff as well, such as the various ostinati with the strings, and all of the references to classical minimalism that occur throughout the OST (classical minimalism is very different than electronic minimalism). Even the mix of avant-garde techniques and sounds in traditional music was covered here, with many songs deploying experimental and abstract electronic sounds in their compositions, with one brief moment even bordering into noise at a moment. Overall, the OST has a very distinct sound that really nails the expected atmosphere for the anime. Its incredibly consistent as well, with the whole OST really feeling like one coherent fleshed out sonic universe.
Mini-album art review: I love the cover art of this OST album. All of the clean black makes the cover have a really sharp look to it which matches the show. I especially like that the background has drawings in it and wasn't left plain, the white line-art on the black background looks really nice. Awesome central artwork on the front cover as well showcasing some of the characters. The greenish teal and white borders are nice too, especially that teal, is a good pop of color (and also helps to represent the guns in the anime). I actually like how the cover is devoid of text as well, keeps it really clean looking.
Links:
Album streaming link: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_ngHC9G8LyW3x1sbTyRH4GqI4UVJMqzl2I
Himeko's favorite tracks playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvB4ha5o455uJDpvnMnSI1TKTWDQzVvYL
VGMdb page: https://vgmdb.net/album/38314
MAL page: https://myanimelist.net/anime/13601/Psycho-Pass
Complete playlist of favorite tracks of OSTs covered in this listening list: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvB4ha5o455szOdif2qihz4henIPBvhtJ
