CD review: THE BLOB original soundtrack (2,000 edition)

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 06/19/2011
THE BLOB original soundtrack | ©2011 La La Land Records

Ahhh, to be back in the synth-driven days of horror scoring, especially covered in red, keyboard goo, voices, dark strings and feverish percussion that accompanies the 1988 BLOB– all placed into an undulating musical mass by Michael Hoenig. Having played with Tangerine Dream, Hoenig’s first synth credit was gracing GALAXY OF TERROR before establishing his own composing chops on such genre cult favorites as MAX HEADROOM, THE WRAITH, THE GATE and I, MADMAN. While THE BLOB’s music seems to be all effectively shapeless stings dribbling tones, and militarism for the true government bio-villains, Hoenig’s score really kicks into gear during […]Read On »


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CD review: PRIEST original soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER
PRIEST original soundtrack | ©2011 Madison Gate Records

When it comes to the musical battle between heaven and hell, Christopher Young plays the clash of Godly might and the unholy’s fearsome forces like few composers in the supernatural scoring business, especially with the massive symphonic and choral power of such soundtracks as HELLRAISER, BLESS THE CHILD, THE EXORCISM OF EMILY ROSE, DRAG ME TO HELL, GHOST RIDER, etc. Now Young’s religioso voices and snarling orchestras have at it again with terrifically entertaining fury on the future, vampire-plagued Earth of PRIEST. It’s one thing to unleash the tropes of musical hell, but it’s another to truly know how to […]Read On »


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CD Review: SOURCE CODE soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 06/12/2011
Source Code soundtrack © 2011 Lakeshore Records

Composer Chris Bacon has certainly picked up some mad skills by working with James Newton Howard on such scores as KING KONG and THE DARK KNIGHT. And his own talent was readily apparent when he gave SPACE CHIMPS a score that played them like Apollo 10 astronauts. Now Bacon gets his biggest solo score to date with SOURCE CODE, with a straight-ahead suspense approach that’s light-and-day different than what Clint Mansell brought to director Duncan Jones’ last film MOON. Bacon brings it in mainstream style here with an approach that brings to ear Jerry Goldsmith and Christopher Young’s sleek, start-and-stop […]Read On »


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CD Review: A MAN CALLED HORSE soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER
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)

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER
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: BATTLESTAR GALACTICA VOL. 1 Original Soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 05/29/2011
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

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER
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

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER
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)

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 05/28/2011
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

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER
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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