Soundtracks

CD Review: A MAN CALLED HORSE soundtrack

A MAN CALLED HORSE soundtrack | ©2011 Film Score Monthly

From the emotionally turbulent breakwaters of EAST OF EDEN to the experimental innards of FANTASTIC VOYAGE and the primal tones that lay BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES, Leonard Rosenman continues to stand as the harbinger of applying avant garde techniques to film scoring- music whose clash of Stravinsky-esque dissonance with traditional melody was just as suited for the concert stage as it was a movie screen. So when given the task of applying a truly authentic American Indian sound to this classic 1970 wilderness adventure, the last thing Rosenman was going to do was go for the soaring, symphonic […]Read On »


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CD Review: THE KNACK original soundtrack (1,000 edition)

THE KNACK original soundtrack | ©2011 Quartet Records

John Barry was surely one composer who had this score’s titular gift as he prowled swinging 60’s London with best mate Michael Caine. So it’s a given that his score for this surreal 1965 film about a lad hunting for English birds would get the clever, lush bounce that Barry used to impress an audience far bigger than the era’s lovely ladies. Arguably the best score to make use of the composer’s free-style jazz origins with The John Barry Seven, and definitely more mature than the sexed-up teen pop energy he gave to his first score for BEAT GIRL, THE […]Read On »


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CD review: CRYSIS 2 original soundtrack

CRYSIS 2 original soundtrack | ©2011 La La Land Records

EA’s biomechanical warrior returns to the ruins of New York to take on all comers, aliens and humans included. And just as warrior and futuristic firepower are merged, the explosive work of main game composers Borislav Slavov and Tilman Sillescu seamlessly join with Hans Zimmer and Lorne Balfe into one mean musical machine. And  it must say something about Slavov and Silescu’s first-gen music to entice Hollywood’s most formidable composer to throw down in a big way with one of his own well-regarded warriors. Yet together, the resulting onslaught of high-tech samples, gnarly guitars, explosively accelerating percussion, slithering alien motifs and […]Read On »


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CD review: CAMELOT original TV soundtrack

CAMELOT original soundtrack | ©2011 Varese Sarabande Records

Where the music of King Arthur tends to sweep in like a massively noble symphony on steeds, scoring brothers-in-arms Mychael and Jeff Danna do well by playing their leader as a subtler, second coming for another Showtime series that sexes up mythic history, this time in the realm of CAMELOT. It’s an intriguing setting for a world music approach that creates its sorcery with Indian ragas, exotic percussion, horns and Celtic rhythms, an approach that’s as timeless as it is lyrical. While the Dannas might not have the magic to get the kind of trumpeting orchestral firepower afforded to the […]Read On »


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CD Review: BATTLESTAR GALACTICA VOL. 1 Original Soundtrack

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA soundtrack | ©2011 Intrada Records

No expense was spared in ABC’s answer to STAR WARS, especially when it came to the music budget of its three-hour pilot. And if John Williams made a go of cosmic myth making with the London Symphony Orchestra, then Stu Phillips would get the full disposal of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra. “TV” music rarely had this kind of impact, and Phillips’ symphonic power was certainly rousing as it blasted through then-small television speakers, and the vinyl of the re-recorded 40 minutes that Phillips culled from this “Saga of the Star World” for an MCA LP. Now those legions who […]Read On »


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CD Review: MONSTERS soundtrack

MONSTERS soundtrack | ©2011 Vertigo Media Limited

The best electronic-heavy sci-fi scores like John Murphy’s SUNSHINE and David Holmes’ CODE 46 transport you to a place that’s far more about hallucinogenic chill than it about bug-eyed creatures, or gigantic tentacled ones in this movie’s case. MONSTERS stands as the most conversely beautiful, acid trip scoring done for a title like this, as rock synthesist Jon Hopkins takes the cool grooves he gave to Massive Attack and Brian Eno (particularly on his LOVELY BONES score) and applies them to a soundtrack that’s about learning to understand the enemy, if not necessarily making peace with them. Never once descending […]Read On »


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CD review: BEASTLY score soundtrack

BEASTLY score soundtrack | ©2011 Lakeshore Records

Composing in musical footsteps where Alan Menken (aka Disney’s BEAUTY AND THE BEAST), Georges Auric and Lee Holdridge didn’t fear to tread, rising composer Marcelo Zarvos has written what might be the most unexpectedly pleasant score to accompany a tale as seemingly old as time. His sprightly, alt. stylings of BEASTLY are especially happy given the Goth advertising that’s accompanied this tween update, which throws the characters into a magical high school setting. Zarvos strikes an often lilting, if not sometimes downright pokey mix between lush strings, tender piano playing and subtle rock stylings. Rather than his music reflecting a […]Read On »


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CD Review: UNFORGETTABLE soundtrack (1100 copies limited edition)

UNFORGETTABLE soundtrack |©2011 Perseverance Records

It seemed only natural that Christopher Young’s talents for melodic darkness would evolve from the satanic strains of his HELLRAISER-ish scores, and put him on the more “respectable” map of the romantic mystery thriller, a genre he was particularly prolific with in the ’90’s in such scores as COPYCAT, DREAM LOVER, HUSH and JENNIFER 8. Perhaps Young’s most interesting, and romantically yearning score during that decade was 1996’s UNFORGETTABLE. John Dahl’s now-cult film saw Ray Liotta using a memory regressing drug to ferret out his wife’s killer, a process whose elements of sci-fi and horror allowed Young to use the […]Read On »


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CD Review: YOUR HIGHNESS original soundtrack

YOUR HIGHNESS original soundtrack | ©2011 Varese Sarabande Records

After the somewhat unintentional hilarity of the TRANSFORMERS movies, Steve Jablonsky gets to score an outright gonzo take on ’80’s sword and sorcery films, with all of the sound and fury he usually applies to Optimus Prime. And that’s perfect when it comes to playing this unabashedly rude fantasy spectacle for real. Like a composer who’d been subjected to CLOCKWORK ORANGE-like viewings of THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD, THE PRINCESS BRIDE, KULL THE CONQUERER and WILLOW, then turned loose on the world, Jablonsky wreaks loud havoc with every musical cliché in the genre book, as reworked for a rock orchestral […]Read On »


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CD Review: THE WORLD OF WARCRAFT: CATACLYSM soundtrack

THE WORLD OF WARCRAFT: CATACLYSM soundtrack | ©2011 Azeroth Music

While I don’t know if I’ll ever be a WORLD OF WARCRAFT addict in line for a pwn’ing, there are certainly enough gigantic stylings on this album to suck in a game music novice, let alone anyone who appreciates operatic fantasy scoring. That’s fitting for a CATACLYSM which unleashes a dragon who’d give Smaug a run for his money into WOW’s massive on-line universe, allowing the composing team of Russell Brower, Derek Duke, Neal Acree, David Arkenstone and Glenn Stafford to suit up in ragingly melodic armor. CATACLYSM is awash in a thrilling tone familiar to anyone who’s ever imagined […]Read On »


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