Amazingly, 'Arrival' wasn't the first time that Jóhannsson had written a theme for superhuman tentacled entities that brought both fear and hope. The 24 minute animation 'Varmints', directed by Marc Craste and released in 2009 is a tale – possibly, but not certainly, for children – of overcrowding, crushing urbanisation, inhumanity and the tentative hope of redemption through destruction and the intervention of incomprehensible higher powers. Jóhannsson through and through in other words, and he soundtracked it perfectly.