Synthwave pioneer Miami Nights 1984 is back with a soundtrack for the movie called Flinch. This comes nine years after the previous and iconic release called Turbulence. With such an important presence not being active with releases from this project this comes as a fantastic surprise and fans will accept this with open arms. Whilst not seeing the movie Flinch I will be reviewing this to see if the music does the talking.

The intro is your typical intense Lethal Weapon background music when you know it’s going down. Church keeps up the intensity with sounds matching the title track. Pull Up becomes eerie and lead into Doyle perfectly before nicely fading out. On My Own is a calm track which relates to the track name. The Girl shakens things up with a more lively approach. Watching is a track that definitely takes you away and places you in a state of comfort. The Job brings back the eerie intensity that started off the soundtrack.

Getting Messy is the first track that is longer than 3 minutes and it’s such a frantic journey. She Didn’t Flinch is another longer song with a more soft sound and slow tempo sound very angelic. 30 Minutes follows from the previous song with the same theme and sounds. James is very brief but has a solid sound especially with the bass crashing in half way through. Sleep will chill you out to the point you get lost in the song. The Talk follows theme being eerie yet soothing.

Escape is an absolute beast clocking at 8:14 and it sadly doesn’t offer much experimentation with the lengthy duration. Kiss is next and everything to me is just perfect about it from the sounds used to the production quality. Surprise is another large track and takes a couple of minutes to kick in and offers more excitement than Escape. Extended – Extended tears it up with rapid bass and surprises you with the only “percussion” on the album which really wakes you up. Bang Bye ends the album on a high with a nice fade out.

Miami Nights 1984 showcases again that he has production to absolute perfect. The synth and sounds are so crisp and clear it’s oozing professionalism. Having barely any percussion on the soundtrack is brave but its pull off. The album can only be described as dark ambience with it’s eerie yet soothing sound which would please fans of Miami Nights 1984 and those who don’t like vocals on tracks. It doesn’t reach the sheer perfection of Turbulence, but this is a solid soundtrack that you can lose yourself into.

– Matthew Clewley
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