Film soundtracks have always been a crucial part of the art form: they shape atmosphere, set mood, draw viewers in, and underscore the film’s most emotionally significant moments. In our contemporary reality, music remains important to films, but it’s no longer the primary vehicle for narrative expression as it was in, say, silent cinema, where music served as one of the essential storytelling tools.

Today we can even encounter films with no music at all, or where traditional orchestral arrangements are replaced by ambient soundscapes. This allows directors to convey their vision more fully and conceptually. But wasn’t it beautiful when music was an absolutely integral part of cinema, when the soundtrack became as vital as the actors’ performances? And continuing this thread, I want to tell you about the album METRO9 (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) by Case Trick.

The METRO9 album is a collection of soundtracks for the eponymous Post Neo Expressionist film project NEUN METRO // METRO9. The storytelling style and concept of METRO9 are remarkable. Across 22 tracks, the musician revives the spirit of Thea von Harbou’s novel Metropolis and Fritz Lang’s groundbreaking silent film. And what I find incredibly compelling is that the METRO9 album can exist on its own as a fully realized form of audio art.

To better understand METRO9, it’s worth revisiting the novella “Metropolis” and Fritz Lang’s silent film. The story unfolds in a futuristic city riven by class divisions, where the son of a wealthy industrialist uncovers the harsh conditions of oppressed workers. It explores themes of class struggle, industrialization, and the potential for revolution and reconciliation between different social classes. And undoubtedly, the METRO9 album and film embody the spirit of the original story, but masterfully season it with a contemporary perspective, contrasts, and allow this timeless narrative to be rediscovered through the lens of experimental electronics, industrial themes, alt and indie sonics, as well as operatic influences.

I want to tell you about the most striking tracks that grabbed me the most and created that very atmosphere which the musician conveyed with remarkable precision. Themes of social inequality and oppressed society are revealed in the opening track “Brave,” accompanied by a procession of identically dressed workers who are completely indistinguishable from one another. This serves as an important conceptual idea necessary for creating an industrial world with class inequalities. This notion is also reflected in the minimalism and distortion of “Brave’s” sound. The electronics are very harsh, sharp and cold, evoking the rhythm of factories and manufacturing.

The dystopian sound, filled with societal suppression, the ideology of power and silence, unfolds in the track “Afterlife” through electronic pulses, rhythmic energy, and a detached, subdued voice that paints images from the life of the film’s recreated world in consciousness.

I love how the energy is emphasized in “Alright – Di Ex Machinis Remix“: an incredibly driving rhythm, a track with very vivid dynamics and percussion recreates the rhythm of the city with its vital force, stories and landscapes. The combination of airy, almost dream-like electronics with heavy bass and percussion allows you to feel the sound of this track and hear the heavy rhythms merging with airiness. This duality of life is felt very strongly.

The track “Metamorphosis – Electric Sheep Mix” sounds profoundly and inexplicably hazy with its sustained pads, light Industrial ambient, which reveals that mysterious part of the world that often remains only in thoughts but possesses power and energy. “Metamorphosis – Electric Sheep Mix” is a quite interesting track that also reflects a very vulnerable, enigmatic part of the world, what remains behind closed doors and secret from everyone, because, as we know about dystopias, action against the system is punishable.

I want to highlight the tracks “Afterlife – Pati Mix” and “Originate – Ambient Mix,” which heat up the atmosphere, emphasizing the conceptual nature of the world with its internal problems and creating dynamics within the album. It seems to me that it’s precisely in “Afterlife – Pati Mix” that confrontation and attempts at change in the world begin. This led me to think about the newly emerging vocals. The presence of voice in the album is rare, but it appears only at important narrative moments. And this conceptual appearance of vocals can be correlated with the dystopian world, in which there are also people, and although their voices are muted, they still exist and can make themselves heard to break the system. And when “Originate – Ambient Mix” arrives after such a track with its pulsing electronic energy and heavy bass, the atmosphere intensifies to the limit, and the feeling of a grim industrial world takes on an almost physical impact, inducing chills and a sense of isolation. This is pretty cool and unusual.

Closer to the album and film’s conclusion, we enter a world where resistance emerges and the system is destroyed, and therefore the track “Wander” sounds tense, tragic, and a dramatically distorted operatic part merges with an electronic voice in the distant background, while the melody is suppressed, dominated by low tones and pulsating electronics. And this atmosphere intensifies in the track “Reunion” with a stronger rhythm, bright energy and almost commercial dance influences, but at the same time quite conceptual harmonies appear in the track, filling what’s happening with a sense of resistance and power, and for me, thanks to the light keys, a feeling of hope emerges and the sensation that those voices which the system silenced will nevertheless be heard.

The album concludes with the track “Crucial,” which sounds peaceful, light, and reminiscent of a post-credits scene where the heroes accomplish the impossible, the world changes, and it seems that the future ahead will be better, different. This feeling of hope, lightness and almost victorious tranquility in Crucial is conveyed to me through the sensual picking of keys, airy guitar rhythms and quite peaceful, bright harmonies.

METRO9 (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) is a very artfully crafted album that creates an audio film for you even without watching the eponymous movie. But I recommend you enjoy the film as much as the album. Because this is unique art that speaks about complex things, about eternal problems that simply change form, disguise themselves behind flashy tabloids and advertising, but these eternal problems still remain in the life of modern humanity. METRO9 is certainly not mass cinema and album, it’s complex conceptual art, and it’s precisely because of this that it’s great and capable of allowing listeners to think and analyze the contemporary world beyond media noise. Perhaps it also needs rose-colored glasses removed and changes, doesn’t it?

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