"From the ominous brass swells that open the score to The 4th Floor, we're immediately pulled into Brian Tyler's dark, disturbing musical journey. Using full orchestration and instrumentation ranging from mallet-struck piano strings to the Middle Eastern duduk, the music not only captures the essence of the film, but also truly helps to create it. We feel it in the haunting female voice rising over the other instrumens, etherized, almost child-like - the mysterious "other". In the dark hallways and staircases of the film, this floating melody constantly reminds us of a presence - this "other" is watching.

The brilliane of the score lies in that it not only works emotionally, but also is as theoretically intricate as the story it accompanies. As discoveries are made in the plot, the themes and melodies blend - associations are made, sometimes foreshadowing the final revelation of the film, or sometimes leading us astray and heightening the mystery. Melodies grow more complicated, shift in tonality. In a very careful but subtle way, the music develops thematically with the movie.

On listening to the score, there is no doubt that this is the work of a truly promising young film composer. One can detect the echoes and influences of many great composers, from Penderecki to Bartok, but in the end the musical journey of The 4th Floor is in a voice that is truly Mr. Tyler's own".

- John Klausner, Director, The 4th Floor

"As our culture hurtles into the twenty-first century, we are constantly reminded of how jaded we've become once we sit down in a darkened theatre and wait for another dose of the movie-going experience. The digital age has produced in us a heightened awareness of manipulation and unreality; it is practically to surprise anyone these days. This same awareness has, many times, been extended to the craft of film scoring.

Yet Brian Tyler's music for The 4th Floor stands out particularly for it's unwillingness to conjure up memory of a previous score simply to justify its own existence. In just two short years in film scoring, Tyler's compositions have gained a cohesiveness and mature edge that many composers spend entire careers refining. The 4th Floor is an excellent example of Tyler's style and, also, a harbinger of greater things to come. The styles of Tyler's compositions for the film range from post-modern "controlled aleatoricism" to more classically-structured melodies, yet they're all unified by the composer's keen dramatic sense. The 4th Floor is a story with otehrworldly, horrifice elements, yet it's a film with an emotional backbone. Such a backbone provides Tyler with the opportunity to lace the scares with real emotional content, and he does not disappoint. Contrast the dynamically overlapping percussion meters of "Portcullis", and the pumped-up "Attack On The Locksmith" with the mournfully beautiful measures of "Alice Voiceover" and the score's main-and-end-title cues.

As we watch the craft of filmmaking and film scoring evolve, it is always a pleasure to watch a real talent emerge. Brian Tyler is one of these rare gems, and it is going to be a pleasure to watch his music evolve in the coming years.

- Jason Comerford (album liner notes)