Soundtracks

CD Review: SILENT HILL: DOWNPOUR soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 06/17/2012
SILENT HILL: DOWNPOUR soundtrack | ©2012 Milan Records

Daniel Licht certainly knows clever ways to kill people in the company of DEXTER, not to mention a gore-splattered musical past that includes HELLRAISER: BLOODLINE, THINNER and BAD MOON. It’s a set of eerie skills that suit him well for entering the video game netherworld for the first time with two entries into the SILENT HILL mythos. Up first is SILENT HILL: DOWNPOUR, which has an escaped convict being thrown into this twisted Twilight Zone after a Richard Kimble-style bus crash. Starting off DOWNPOUR with a bang is a catchy theme song by Korn’s Jonathan Davis, whose thrash makes it […]Read On »


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CD Review: BATTLESHIP soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER
BATTLESHIP soundtrack | ©2012 Varese Sarabande Records

When it comes to playing Big F’n Machine Things and slo-mo shots of beautiful heroes looking very concerned as the world appears to be ending in effects Armageddon, Steve Jablonsky remains the unstoppable equivalent to Optimus Prime, blasting out irresistibly catchy rhythms for the Michael Bay school of visual overload. What makes Jablonsky’s work supreme for the multiplex is his ability to run a marathon of hyper-notes with a heroic, thematic hook, breathlessly going through every motivic permutation possible when the score isn’t allowed to stop- yet still making that exhaustion fun. On that end, BATTLESHIP’s music beds are perhaps […]Read On »


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CD Review: ONCE UPON A TIME soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 06/16/2012
ONCE UPON A TIME soundtrack | ©2012 Intrada Records

ABC’s fractured fairy tale show couldn’t have asked for a better composer than Mark Isham to tread between fantasy land and the “real world” of Storybrooke. Now with ONCE UPON A TIME’s yarns looking like they’ll be flipping for a while on Rumplestiltskin’s wheel, Intrada compiles the best of Isham’s episodic enchantments for an album the show’s fans will appreciate, as well as those appreciative of his cinematic stories. And therein lies TIME‘s best spell at fully bringing together those two worlds with Isham’s lush, yet melodically delicate sound. For while he might not have scored this kind of live […]Read On »


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CD Review: DARK SHADOWS soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER
DARK SHADOWS soundtrack | ©2012 WaterTower Music

Of all the great, Gothic love affairs that have been artistically going on in the cinema, easily the most enjoyable, and enduring partnership belongs to composer Danny Elfman and filmmaker Tim Burton. Birds of a bizarre feather from Elfman’s joyously demonic rock band Oingo Boingo to Burton’s twisted scribblings for a Disney, it was fate that these kindred, oddball spirits would immediately hit it off from the clown hell that tormented Pee Wee Herman’s BIG ADVENTURE in 1985. The Burton / Elfman a circus of audio-visual horrors that would mostly grow increasingly frenetic through the likes of BEETLEJUICE, BATMAN RETURNS, […]Read On »


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CD Review: ROCKETSHIP X-M soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 05/28/2012
ROCKETSHIP X-M soundtrack | ©2012 Monstrous Movie Music

Intrepid Earth beings would get theirs upon visiting another planet in 1950’s ROCKETSHIP X-M. Along with DESTINATION MOON, ROCKETSHIP was one of the pioneering sci-fi movies, whose phallic spacecraft ended up landing on a mutant-infested Mars, as opposed to the dusty Moon- a predicament that not even manly X-M captain Lloyd Bridges could beat. The real discovery of this space voyage is its rousing score by Ferde Grofe. With precious few composing credits to his name (Grofe’s biggest hit would be the song “Wonderful One”), ROCKETSHIP X-M reveals a soundscape that’s surprisingly beautiful for the genre scores of the period. […]Read On »


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CD Review: HOSTEL PART III soundtrack (1,000 edition)

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER
HOSTEL PART III soundtrack | ©2012 Varese Sarabande Records

Intended horror franchises never die. They just go straight to video, where, if they’re lucky, they’ll end up in the bloody musical hands of Frederik Weidmann. With a ghoulishly refined ability that’s made his soundtrack sequels to THE HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL, MIRRORS and HELLRAISER into scores whose quality is worthy of the big screen, DV’s go-to-it composer has more than proven that his work is anything but torture to listen to. That craftsmanship is no more apparent than in the passing of the HOSTEL baton from Nathan Barr for the movie’s third time out, this time in Las Vegas. […]Read On »


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CD Review: DAMSELS IN DISTRESS soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 05/27/2012
DAMSELS IN DISTRESS soundtrack | ©2012 Milan Records

When it comes to Whit Stillman’s arch comedies of manners, the filmmaker has found a pleasant cocktail partner in composer Mark Suozzo, who’s brought musical class to the classy quips of METROPOLITAN, BARCELONA and THE LAST DAYS OF DISCO. But Suozzo’s stylings for Stillman’s bon vivants have never been more cutely enjoyable then when he hits the college campus of DAMSELS IN DISTRESS, as abetted by Adam Schlesinger (MUSIC AND LYRICS). On a campus whose not-so mean girls speak and behave as if they were from an era well outside the 21st century, Suozzo and Schlesinger come up with the […]Read On »


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CD Review: THE BLACK CAULDRON

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER
THE BLACK CAULDRON soundtrack | ©2012 Intrada Records

Even if Disney animation didn’t exactly get their answer to THE LORD OF THE RINGS with this 1985 fantasy spectacle, THE BLACK CAULDRON did brew up the last epic genre score that Elmer Bernstein would compose for a major studio. There’s certainly no mistaking his inimitable touch during the era, as CAULDRON‘s theremin-like Ondes Martenot, playful electronics and bold, brassy statements are part of the same, tasty brew from whence the likes of SATURN 3, SPACEHUNTER and HEAVY METAL sprang. But if there’s one Bernstein score that THE BLACK CAULDRON really shares its lifeblood with, then it’s the over-the-top sound […]Read On »


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CD Review: BEL AMI soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 05/26/2012
BEL AMI soundtrack | ©2012 Varese Sarabande Records

Rachel Portman, the mistress of costume drama scoring, takes on the French Bell Epoque era for BEL AMI. And in the stylistically seamless company of Indian co-composer Lakshman Joseph De Saram, Portman shows off her musical trademark of dance-like rhythms and emotive, feminine strings. Her Baroque classicism very much suits AMI‘s elegant social stratification a few centuries hence, and the seductive cunning of the ex soldier who finds his way to success through society’s hemlines. Going for a tone that contrasts poetic beauty with the darkness that lies under the characters’ finery, Portman and De Saram’s music is impressively fashioned […]Read On »


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CD Review: WHITE FANG soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER
WHITE FANG soundtrack | ©2012 Intrada Records

Just like the confident bear who tangles with an upstart white wolf, Basil Poledouris’ old-fangled orchestral score was given a proper mauling by the Disney execs, who make their period Jack London adventure seem a lot more contemporary. But where it’s usually the veteran creature who’d lose the fight when thrown into the fight pit of studio politics, quite a bit of both composers’ work ended up in WHITE FANG, making the movie most notable for its stylistic clash of scores in the long run (even if Zimmer somehow went uncredited). Yet props can also be given to Disney for […]Read On »


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