I had absolutely no idea what Gundam was before I came across this soundtrack album. Turns out it’s a gigantically popular franchise in Japan (and elsewhere) based on robots – tv series, movies, games, manga, books – and this album is the soundtrack from a pavilion at the 2025 World Expo. And let me tell you – it is Epic. With a capital E. American-born, Tokyo-based composer Evan Call only came onto my radar a couple of years ago, since when I’ve heard a fair bit of his work and liked all of it – and this is one of the best yet. Anyone who loves great big orchestral film music is in for a treat: this is Big. With a capital B. (Actually, the only thing that isn’t Big is the length of the album – I spend so much time complaining about soundtrack albums that are too long – but this one’s only 29 minutes and I just want it to go on and on. I assume this is all the music Call wrote – but still, that isn’t going to stop me complaining.)
