Music

CD Review: INFAMOUS SECOND SON soundtrack

INFAMOUS SECOND SON soundtrack | ©2014 Sumthing Else

Sucker Punch’s grunge -powered game makes an electrifying leap to next-gen with SECOND SON the new INFAMOUS game that throws its slacker superheroes into Seattle environs to be pursued by nefarious government forces. It’s X-MEN meets Kurt Cobain if you will, which makes composers the decision of composers Marc Canham (FAR CRY 2), Nathan Johnson (LOOPER) and INFAMOUS 2‘s Brain to go for a Pearl Jam-charged action score right on the beanie-wearing, spray-painting money. Where other video game soundtracks might achieve their adrenalin through pure, and sometimes dull electro-beats, this trio employs thrashing guitars, echoed hollering and sweat-flying drum solos […]Read On »


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CD Review: BEAUTY AND THE BEAST soundtrack

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST soundtrack | ©2014 Quartet Records

A tale as old as time, and the movies, gets a fantastical, live action French reboot from Christophe Gans, a director who knows something about fearsome animals after making BROTHERHOOD OF THE WOLF. Beyond its stylized snowscape, a standout spell for this relatively faithful version is its gorgeous score by Pierre Adenot, whose lavishly melodic and utterly enchanting score conjures the light and darkness of fairy tale imagination in any musical language, sans the singing teapots. Having scored numerous films in his native land (with his contribution to PARIS JE T’AIME likely being most familiar to American audiences), BEAUTY AND […]Read On »


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CD Review: THE RAID 2 soundtrack

THE RAID 2 soundtrack | ©2014 Spacelab 9

While its exhausting running time and sadistic body count certainly isn’t expanded on to THE RAID 2‘s benefit, one returning factor that this sequel makes bigger, better and more bad-ass is the in the punishingly exciting score by Joseph Trapanese and two composers given their shot at redemption.Teamed with Linkin Park’s Mike Shinoda for the first apartment-by-apartment Armageddon of  THE RAID Trapanese is now accompanied by Aria Prayogi and Fajar Yuskemai – the Indonesian dudes who actually scored REDEMPTION before Trapanese and Shinoda kicked them to the curb. But there’s anything but hard feelings here beyond meting out even more […]Read On »


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CD Review: CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER soundtrack

CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER soundtrack | ©2014 Intrada Records

Where most Marvel movie scores have been sure to couch their metal musical exosuits in warmly approachable orchestral flesh, CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER is the first comic book score from the studio to truly do a Terminator number on its listeners for a significant chunk of time, going for hammering, stripped-down percussion and nail-on-chalkboard effects, a cold, troubling sound even crazier than the kind of ultra-beat scoring you’d normally get for scores featuring such assassin-turned-heroes as Jason Bourne. However, we’re talking about a hero-turned-assassin in THE WINTER SOLDIER, which is more than justification for Henry Jackman to come up […]Read On »


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CD Review: YOUNG SHERLOCK HOLMES soundtrack

YOUNG SHERLOCK HOLMES soundtrack | ©2014 Intrada Records

The ’80s were the glory days when it came to the Amblin pictures that truly imparted company head Steven Spielberg’s handprint of thrillingly humanistic fantasy and chills to any number of movies that stand as classics for a certain generation – among them BACK TO THE FUTURE, GREMLINS and THE GOONIES. Also uniting these movies were their sweeping orchestral scores by the likes of Alan Silvestri, Jerry Goldsmith and Dave Grusin, which also resonated with a topical pop sound. But if there was one Amblin composer who stood as the answer to equaling the thrillingly lush, symphonic quality of John […]Read On »


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CD Review: GIRL ON A BICYCLE soundtrack

GIRL ON A BICYCLE soundtrack | ©2014 Lakeshore Records

After using a groovily offbeat acoustical approach for to play the tangled LA relationships of LOVELY & AMAZING and FRIENDS WITH MONEY, American composer Craig Richey takes a trip to Paris for a more universally symphonic comedy sound for GIRL ON A BICYCLE, as an Italian tour bus driver with a sex-starved German fiancée finds himself falling for a winsome French bicyclist who passes by his route. While he wittily captures its characters’ nationalities with an accordion and mandolin, this enjoyably sweet is mostly about using lushly melodic strings for the kind of perky Francophile enchantment practiced by Alexandre Desplat […]Read On »


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CD Review: Camper Van Beethoven – OUR BELOVED REVOLUTIONARY SWEETHEART / KEY LIME PIE reissues

Camper Van Beethoven - KEY LIME PIE reissue | ©2014 Omnivore Records

Distributor: Omnivore Records Suggested Retail Price: $15.98 (each, CD price) Despite the fact that Cracker frontman Dave Lowery tore Virgin Records a new ass with his song “Ain’t Gonna Suck Itself” (“Virgin Records/it ain’t gonna suck itself/I say baby/it ain’t gonna suck itself) after a bitter label breakup, it doesn’t take anything away from the current reissues (courtesy of Omnivore Records) of his other band Camper Van Beethoven’s major label 1980s era albums OUR BELOVED REVOLUTIONARY SWEETHEART and KEY LIME PIE. Prior to these two discs (there’s also a special vinyl reissue as well), Camper Van Beethoven was a quirky […]Read On »


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CD Review: THE FACE OF LOVE soundtrack

THE FACE OF LOVE soundtrack | ©2014 Varese Sarabande Records

With a real talent for playing intimate orchestral emotion, Marcelo Zarvos is making a name for himself when it comes to psychological dramas from THE BEAVER to THE WORDS and even the sweetly pokey scoring for ENOUGH SAID (now out as a Varese limited edition). It’s a feeling for the mysterious nature of human relationships that gets a Hitchcockian treatment as Annette Benning’s widow suffers a non-lethal case of vertigo after becoming enamored with a dead ringer for her husband. Going for the kind of richly emphatic, strongly theme-driven emotion that other composer’s might fear to tread in, Zarvos captures […]Read On »


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CD Review: DEMETRIUS AND THE GLADIATORS soundtrack

DEMITRIUS AND THE GLADIATORS soundtrack | ©2014 Kritzerland Records

Franz Waxman took over from Alfred Newman for this more action-oriented sequel to the smash Cinemascope hit THE ROBE,  music that lavished in the widescreen opportunities for sex, slaying and that good old time Hollywood religion. Making an on-screen point that he was taking a very big spiritual cue from Newman’s original work in addition to themes from its holy melodic clothing, Waxman’s score is a colorful blend of sword-and-sandal spectacle and messianic message so particular to this genre, music that’s exciting and moving in equal measure. While not trying to ethnically capture the sounds of a Roman Empire under […]Read On »


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CD Review: LE WEEK-END soundtrack

LE WEEK-END soundtrack | ©2014 Milan Records

It seems to have been a while since we’ve had a really wonderful “pure jazz” soundtrack since Mark Isham’s bluesy work on such Alan Rudolph relationship films as AFTERGLOW and THE MODERNS. LE WEEK-END nicely brings back those fond memories for a wonderfully brief spell that takes listeners back to the latter score’s City of Lights, as a burned-out British couple tries to rekindle their spark on a second honeymoon. Yet given that these aren’t young lovers swinging about artist circles during the 1930s, composer Jeremy Sams takes an entrancingly cool jazz combo approach a la Chet Baker, with a […]Read On »


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