Music

CD Review: BRUC soundtrack

Bruc Soundtrack | ©2010 Movie Score Media

You can likely put the number of Napoleon-ea action scores on a short list, a unique quality that makes the genre open musical territory for Spanish-born (and American-trained) composer Xavier Capellas, who’s handled the scoring chores on such Spanish-funded horror pictures as BEYOND RE-ANIMATOR and FAUST. BRUC carries as similarly unhinged quality as a Catalonian goes Rambo on the Emperor’s assassins who pursue him through the mountainous wilds of Monteressat, giving Capellas the opportunity to unleash heroic hell in one of the more weirdly off-kilter period scores since Joe Lo Duca’s BROTHERHOOD OF THE WOLF. Here more symphonically traditional adventure […]Read On »


COMMENTS (0)

CD Review: THE BOUNTY soundtrack

The Bounty Soundtrack | ©2010 Buysoundtrax

The idea of having someone else try to re-create the inimitable sound of Vangelis is enough to induce a Vietnam flashback to the infamous New American Orchestra’s “adaptation” of 1982’s BLADE RUNNER, done at the time of the film’s release to cash in on fans’ desperate desire for an official soundtrack that would be twenty-five years in coming. While admirers of his similarly excellent 1984 score to the BOUNTY are still waiting to hear its original tracks release beyond two cuts on Vangelis’ “Themes” CD, Buysoundtrax’ “new” BOUNTY album definitely won’t make the composer’s crew seasick, especially with Dominik Hauser […]Read On »


COMMENTS (1)

Music Review: Elvis Costello – NATIONAL RANSACK E.P.

Distributor: Hear Music Suggested Retail Price: $8.99 Elvis Costello has always been a prolific artist, and even as his career is going on his fifth decade in the business, he’s still cranking out amazing songs and albums at an accelerated pace (and that’s not counting all the reissues of his older albums with bonus tracks). Last year, he released his latest effort, the somewhat uneven NATIONAL RANSOM, a hodge podge of tracks that felt like cast-offs from MOMOFUKU and SECRET, PROFANE AND SUGARCANE. It doesn’t mean that it wasn’t any good, it was just stylistically and consistency-wise all over the […]Read On »


COMMENTS (0)

CD Review: DEAD RISING 2 soundtrack

DEAD RISING soundtrack

When it seems that just about every last note has been used to dismember, decapitate and blow the brains out of the endless zombie hordes who are attacking via film, TV and videogames, along comes some DEAD RISING 2 dudes named Oleksa Lozowchuk, The Humble Brothers, Jeremy Soule and Klayton to show there are infinitely more variations to this dance of death, which turns into a thoroughly fun slamdance of styles for this game sequel that brings on the flesh eaters in spades. With the action taking place in “Fortune City,” the new RISING satirically starts out with hellbilly rock […]Read On »


COMMENTS (0)

CD Review: FAMILY PLOT (5,000 edition) soundtrack

Family Plot soundtrack | ©2010 Varese Sarabande Records

In his 50-year plus career, Alfred Hitchcock had his macabre way with every top composer from Miklos Rozsa to Dmitri Tiomkin (not to mention Bernard Herrmann). So it seemed fitting that he’d go out with a bang by using John Williams, whose suspenseful career was on the fast track with the just-released JAWS. Instead of turning to the knife-slashing suspense one would expect Hitch to sum up his repertoire with, the director went for far more light-hearted fare about a sleazy psychic and her pursuers, taking Williams down a deliciously twisted road of dark comedy that would serve as a […]Read On »


COMMENTS (0)

CD Review: THE ILLUSIONIST soundtrack

THE ILLUSIONIST soundtrack | ©2010 Milan Records

There have been many terrific, epically in-your-face scores for this year’s exceedingly tasty crop of Hollywood CGI toons. So it’s particularly nice to hear the powerful gentility of his beautifully animated French film, one that just received a deserved Oscar bone nod to the quickly vanishing hand-drawn pictures that used to be the category’s, and industry norm. That’s also very much the theme for director-animator-composer Sylvain Chomet’s fable about the waning days of vaudeville, as embodied by a magician who plies his rabbit about Europe in the early 60’s. Where Chomet’s equally wonderful, and far more antic TRIPLETS OF BELLEVILLE […]Read On »


COMMENTS (0)

CD Review: THE LIVING DEAD AT THE MANCHESTER MORGUE / HORROR EXPRESS soundtrack

Living Dead At the Manchester Morgue (c) 2010 Quartet Records

That isn’t to say that Spanish horror scores from that period were any less terrifying, or funky, as Spain-based Quartet Records is proving with such releases as Waldo de los Rios’ ISLAND OF THE DAMNED and Fernando Garcia Morcillo’s HOWLING OF THE DEVIL. But perhaps none of their soundtracks has a more unique origin than Giluliano Sorgini’s THE LIVING DEAD AT THE MANCHESTER MORGUE.


COMMENTS (0)

CD Review: THE HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY soundtrack

House By the Cemetary (c) 2010 Beat Records

Where POLTERGEIST stands as a landmark in how mostly traditional instruments and orchestrations could be used to create an unearthly tone, rock-centric music certainly wasn’t a slouch at digging into those same fear centers, perhaps with even more chilling results. It’s likely no band did it better than Goblin, an Italian group that turned the progressive vibe pioneered by the likes of Pink Floyd and Zeppelin to far darker ends, using acid builds of electronics, strumming guitars and wailing voices to become escalating webs of fear, the big solo usually accompanying some unlucky woman’s evisceration in such classic scores as DEEP RED and SUSPIRIA.


COMMENTS (0)

CD Review: POLTERGEIST Special Edition (10,000 Edition) soundtrack

Poltergeist (c) 2010 Film Score Monthly

Certainly one of the loudest, and most exciting horror scores belongs inside the television set of the Freeling family, as installed by Jerry Goldsmith. Though a master of just about every movie genre, horror had provided a creatively malefic voice for Goldsmith. He’d marry Bartok-esque impressionism and old scratch violins for THE MEPHISTO WALTZ, blow on MAGIC’s unbalanced harmonicas and win his only Oscar for chanting THE OMEN’s black mass.


COMMENTS (1)

TV Review: AMERICAN IDOL – SEASON 10 – New Jersey Auditions – Season Premiere

Steven Tyler, Jennifer Lopez and Randy Jackson in AMERICAN IDOL - Season 10 - New York/New Jersey Auditions | &copy 2011 Fox/Michael Becker

Was it as odd for you as it was for me watching Steven Tyler and Jennifer Lopez judge a bunch of normal (and lame) every day people on a reality show last night during the opening episode of AMERICAN IDOL? Both have had good and long careers in the music field in the case of Tyler, and movies and music in the case of J.Lo. So seeing them reduced to doing AI just didn’t seem right. And, yes, I used the word reduced. Make no mistake about it. You can sugar coat it, you can talk about how great of […]Read On »


COMMENTS (2)
Increase your website traffic with Attracta.com

Dr.5z5 Open Feed Directory

bottom round