Akira Yamaoka’s ‘Return to Silent Hill’ Soundtrack Now Available to Stream Digitally

With Christophe Gans‘ Return to Silent Hill out now in theaters, Laced Records has gotten in on the fun with the announcement of the film’s soundtrack now available on major streaming services. As any Silent Hill fan would expect, the soundtrack is composed by longtime series composer Akira Yamaoka.

For Yamaoka, the most important principle in scoring Silent Hill, be it film or video game, is: “Do not explain fear.”

“In many films, music clearly tells the audience: this is sad, this is scary, this is the moment to feel uplifted. But in the world of Silent Hill, the moment you do that, fear and sadness collapse the instant they are explained.”

For Return to Silent Hill, Yamaoka took a different approach when scoring the film, preferring to keep the music at “a slight distance,” rather than having the music “embrace’” the scene. “As a result, the audience can no longer be sure whether they are listening to music or hearing sounds that exist inside the world itself. For longtime Silent Hill fans, this may feel unsettling—and, at the same time, strangely familiar.

The music for this film does not aim for listeners to remember a striking phrase. Rather, it seeks to leave behind a state where, after the film has ended, only an emotion remains—one that cannot be easily put into words.”

Here’s the lengthy track list for the soundtrack:

1. Ashes In The Moonlight
2. The Letter
3. The Forest
4. Homeless Guy / Heaven’s Night
5. The Lakeview
6. The Portrait
7. Entering Silent Hill
8. The Field
9. Armless Creature
10. Ashes That Remember You
11. The Bath Room
12. Return to Darkness
13. Running into Darkness
14. Your Father
15. A Corridor Without End
16. The House That Breathes
17. Tailing
18. The Altar
19. Dormant Voices
20. Brookhaven Hospital
21. Dance Studio
22. Echoes Of A Fading Figure
23. Chasing Laura
24. Head No. 2
25. Red Pyramid
26. The Gathering
27. Our Name