Soundtracks

CD Review: MEGAMIND original soundtrack

© 2010 Lakeshore Records | MEGAMIND Soundtrack

Though his one-time minion Heitor Pereria beat him to the supervillain scoring punch with DESPICABLE ME, Hans Zimmer gets the last laugh by actually seeing his similarly-themed, and equally fun MEGAMIND score (done in cahoots with Lorne Balfe) get an actual release on Lakeshore Records. Sure, both flicks might have arches trumpeting their dastardly doings. Yet both DESPICABLE ME and MEGAMIND also show their uber-evil characters as big musical softies. In fact, MEGAMIND is downright sweet for the most part as its titular fiend’s baby bells mix it up with ersatz superhero bombast, music that plays Megamind as the good […]Read On »


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CD Review: Sword and Sorcery scores (CONAN THE BARBARIAN, RED SONJA, JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS)

Conan Soundtrack | © 2010 Tadlow Records

For baby boomer fantasy fans, there were never better days than the early 80’s when it came to seeing sweaty, near-naked barbarians hacking their way through the Hyborean Age with sex and gore to spare. But in a period that’s fondly remembered for the cheesy likes of ATOR THE INVINCIBLE, YOR, HAWK THE SLAYER and THE SWORD AND THE SORCERER, one film truly took the genre seriously, with all the production polish to spare. And 28 years later, John Milius’ adaptation of Robert E. Howard’s CONAN THE BARBARIAN still remains the king of this genre, whose blood and thunder score by Basil Poledouris remains the one fantasy soundtrack to rule them all.


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CD Review: HUMAN TARGET: Season 1 (2,000 edition)

HUMAN TARGET TV Soundtrack | © 2010 La La Land Records

Bear McCreary continues to prove himself as the hardest-working composer on television, whose sound gets bigger and better with each show, none more spectacularly than with the ripping symphonic style he’s given to Fox’s spin on DC comics’ HUMAN TARGET. Though he’s composed the pokey country experiments of EUREKA, the sci-fi mythos of GALACTICA and CAPRICA and the chilling apocalypses of THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES and THE WALKING DEAD, there always seemed to be a superhero waiting to break free from Bear McCreary. And while TARGET’s danger-seeking impersonator might not have any powers beyond being extra crafty, McCreary’s adventurous scoring […]Read On »


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CD Review: SKYLINE soundtrack

© 2010 Varese Sarabande Records | Skyline Soundtrack

If you’re doing a DIY, apartment-set riff on ID4 for the sum of 10 million dollars, then trying to make your production look like it cost 10 times that, you’d better have a score as big as your ambitions. Thankfully, the effects wizard Strause brothers have Matthew Margeson unleashing the big orchestral guns for their unfairly maligned, and thoroughly entertaining gonzo sci-fi pic. With mad action skills learned during a career whose highlights range from assisting Klaus Badelt on CONSTANTINE, to arranging KICK-ASS and programming synths for ANGELS AND DEMONS, Margeson now has his own major debut to apply all […]Read On »


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CD Review: RED HILL soundtrack

© 2010 Milan Records | Red Hill Soundtrack

It’s ironic that two of the coolest wild west scores to arrive in years both hail from Down Under, as Dmitri Golovko’s RED HILL joins Nick Cave and Warren Ellis’ THE PROPOSITION as prime examples of how to give an old musical warhorse a shot of ferocious outlaw energy. But where PROPOSITION’s nerve-jangling percussion brought modern experimentalism to a blood-soaked period piece, RED HILL shoots its raw, old-school acoustic sound into a contemporary western- in this case playing the last stand outback sheriff standing against a recently released villain out for some biblical payback. There’s very little that’s Aussie here […]Read On »


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CD Review: KUNG FU / MAN IN THE WILDERNESS

© 2010 Film Score Monthly Records | Kung Fu Soundtrack

It’s finally time to snatch a pebble out of Film Score Monthly’s hand with this soundtrack two-fer, which combines music from two poetically different scores for men seeking their way in the American outback. The first traveler just happens to be everyone’s favorite Shaolin fugitive monk Cain, whose mystical tête-à-têtes with his teachers are front and center through much of KUNG FU. Though designed as a concept album in 1973 by composer Jim Helms, some score purists might take umbrage to so much dialogue on an FSM release. Yet it’s almost hard to imagine Helms’ harmonies without the Confucianisms, the […]Read On »


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CD Review: JACKBOOTS ON WHITEHALL

© 2010 Movie Score Media | Jackboots on Whitehall Soundtrack

As composer Barry Gray showed with THE THUNDERBIRDS, puppets are far more believable when the composer is playing them for real, especially with music that doesn’t have any strings attached to imbuing the marionettes and their miniature settings with epic heroism. Now with his music for the WW2 spoof JACKBOOTS ON WHITEHALL, Guy Michelmore delivers what’s probably the coolest music to grace marionettes since the days of Team Tracy. As the band of puppet brothers go against the Nazi troops who’ve invaded England, JACKBOOTS summons an explosive spirit in line with TEAM AMERICA, But where Harry Gregson-Williams did a great […]Read On »


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CD Review: IN A BETTER WORLD soundtrack

In A Better World Soundtrack | © 2010 Movie Score Media

After his innovative, haunting work on LET THE RIGHT ONE IN and MURDER FARM, Swedish composer Johan Soderqvist teams for the eighth time with BROTHERS and AFTER THE WEDDING filmmaker Susanne Bier for a family story that segues from the Sudan to Denmark. The result is another deeply affecting, eerily off-kilter score from Soderqvist that uses some of the most strikingly beautiful percussion to grace a drama since Mychael Danna’s ICE STORM. Here, the spectral, bell-glass sounds of the African Array Mbira merges the feelings of a doctor treating victims of tribal violence in a Sudanese refugee camp with the […]Read On »


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CD Review: ON A DARK AND STORMY NIGHT soundtrack

© 2010 Buysoundtrax Records | On A Dark and Stormy Night Soundtrack

In the movie ON A DARK AND STORMY NIGHT, a bunch of Halloween revelers get a very nasty tricks played to their quickly decimating numbers in this aptly titled horror film, which features an appropriately creepy score by Albanian composer Aldo Shllaku. Though he might not have a 100-piece orchestra at his command, Shllaku has obvious fun with the musical tropes of a black-humored body count. What really socks him over as a composer to not turn your back on are ferocious bursts of a pipe organ and throttling rock guitar riffs. Combine these unexpected treats with any bunch of […]Read On »


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CD Review: ALIEN RESURRECTION

© 2010 La La Land Records | Alien Resurrection Soundtrack

The release of Fox’s mega-ALIEN ANTHOLOGY collection on Blu-ray is a particularly good time to revisit the saga’s scores, which have now gotten virtually complete releases on CD and isolated DVD tracks. While we’re still waiting on a full album release for Elliot Goldenthal’s wonderfully strange score to ALIEN 3, another major check has been added for what might be the most unsung score in the series with the release of John Frizzell’s music to ALIEN RESURRECTION, which hits from La La Land as a two-CD edition that collects the complete score, its alternate takes and the original 1997 soundtrack. […]Read On »


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