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© (C) 2009 LaLa Land Records
HEROES Original Soundtrack album
CD REVIEW :
What iF Score Picks: 'HEROES' ONE OF THE TOP SOUNDTRACKS TO OWN FOR APRIL, 2009
Also worth picking up: THE BEST OF A.R. RAHMAN, CRANK: HIGH VOLTAGE, HANOVER STREET, A JOHNNY MANDEL TRIO, THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT, THE POSSIBILITY OF AN ISLAND, TRANSYLVANIA 6-500, THE TUDORS: SEASON 2
By DANIEL SCHWEIGER, Soundtrack Editor
Published 4/27/2009
Here's iF's picks for the best April soundtracks ...
1) CRANK: HIGH VOLTAGE
Price: $14.99
What is it?: Faith No More lead singer Mike Patton makes a bats**t insane debut as a composer in what’s probably the coolest, craziest anti-score to come down the pike since FIGHT CLUB.
Why should you buy it?: Sure you can’t play soothing melody as an impossibly undead assassin blasts himself from one chaotic set piece to the next. So while nothing here could be described as easy listening, Patton’s approach is constantly fun and inventive as electroshock samples jam with hardcore thrash, Spaghetti Western stylings, retro organs and everything else that probably careened through his head in the middle of an acid trip. So completely, and hilariously wild is Patton’s approach that CRANK 2 just might be the soundtrack equivalent of The Tasmanian Devil. And we’re talking the Warner Brother’s cartoon kind.
Extra Special: Not much beyond Patton’s constant level of what-the-f surprise that takes “alt” crime scoring to the next level.
Click HERE to buy
2) HANOVER STREET (3000 Edition)
Price: $19.98
What is it?: Harrison Ford followed up his Han Solo success by playing a valiant WWII fighter pilot, and he couldn’t have gotten a better wingman than John Barry to put the romance into his burgeoning star power- even if it was Barry’s score that was more remembered by mission’s end.
Why should you buy it?: When it comes to lush symphonic love stories, John Barry reigns supreme with the likes of OUT OF AFRICA and SOMEWHERE IN TIME. Now HANOVER STREET finally gets heard in its full 79-minute glory to scale the heights of the composer’s romantic resume. Barry pours out all the heartfelt stops here, his thematic reliance on tender pianos and aching strings pitch-perfect for this old-school take on a brave Yank, the English nurse who falls for him, and her stiff-upper lipped officer hubby whom Ford ends up going behind enemy lines to rescue. Their derring-do provides for the kind of military suspense builds that Barry’s Bond score fans will surely dig beyond the gorgeous tissue-ready stuff at hand.
Extra Special: HANOVER STREET was the only CD in Varese Sarabande’s latest squadron of collector club releases not to get blown out of the sky by fans, but be assured that you’ll be blitzing Ebay for a copy if you don’t get this long-awaited Barry classic ASAP from the label’s website.
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3) HEROES
Price: $19.98
What is it?: Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman have landed what’s probably their biggest gig since PURPLE RAIN as the scoring team for the cult NBC series. Then again, it’s probably easier for them to contend with Sylar than Prince.
Why should you buy it?: Of all the left-field musical approaches to the once stalwart sound of superheroes and sci-fi, HEROES is probably the loopiest, taking an Indian-centric approach that’s a few weird steps removed from SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE, then thematically applying it to an assortment of ersatz mutants. While I could do without Shenkar’s yodeling or the jokey Asian percussion of Hiro and Ando, there’s no denying the ethereal effectiveness of Wendy and Lisa’s melodies- especially when it comes to the creepy chiming of everyone’s favorite brain eater.
Extra Special: Wendy and Lisa’s trippy HEROES stylings show off even more listening muscle when allowed to shine through the album’s extended suites. And in what might be one of the oddest, and cleverest bits of soundtrack art hubris, Wendy and Lisa replicate themselves in place of the TV characters for the HEROES’ CD cover art. Grrlll power indeed.
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4) A JOHNNY MANDEL TRIO (2,000 Edition)
Price: $39.95
What is it?: One of film scoring’s most unsung romanticists gets to shine in this collection that offers the long-awaited releases of Johnny Mandel’s complete soundtracks to THE AMERICANIZATION OF EMILY, THE SANDPIPER and DRUMS OF AFRICA.
Why should you buy it?: Ok. Maybe DRUMS OF AFRICA isn’t so heartfelt, as it’s beat exotica comes across like the prelude to some unknowable ritual. But Mandel’s songs for EMILY and THE SANDPIPER’s Oscar-winning “The Shadow of Your Smile” stand out as two of the most liltingly beautiful title tracks ever written for film (and you’ll get “Smile” variations to spare here). Just mix EMILY’s sweet and sardonic themes with Mandel’s brassy approximations of Liz and Dick’s oceanside affair, and you’ll hear the kind of smoky, brass-topped melodies that accomplished jazzmen like Mandel brought to Hollywood.
Extra Special: Hats off to Film Score Monthly for bringing out all of the audiophile poetry for EMILY and THE SANDPIPER’s scores in this nicely packaged three-disc set.
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5) THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT
Price: $19.98
What is it?: John Murphy’s handled enraged virus victims and a sunbaked space crazy. Now thanks to this Wes Craven remake, his music gets to play homegrown psychopaths and the even more pissed-off parents of their victims.
Why should you buy it?: With his intriguing alt. rock approach to genre material, Murphy’s music has never gone for the white noise sound that makes so many of today’s horror scores unlistenable apart from their help with the onscreen slashing. Now Murphy’s HOUSE continues his intriguing tradition by taking an unusually subtle, and symphonically melodic approach to some very nasty business, turning visually queasiness into an often beautiful and haunting score- but one that still delivers the rock guitar shock treatment when the melodic gloves come off- though thankfully not too often as is par for the bloody course.
Extra Special: A cool color booklet where Craven gives deserved props to Murphy’s offbeat approach, one that considerably elevates the material it’s playing over.
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Also for Your Consideration
THE BEST OF A.R. RAHMAN
If you wanted more “Jai Ho”-ing after the exuberant, Oscar-winning song that ended SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE, then this wonderful masala of golden boy composer A.R. Rahman’s greatest hits will bring far more than Bollywood to your speakers. As a musician determined to bring age-old Indian instruments and rhythms into the west’s 20th century groove, Rahman’s terrific production values and captivating melodies make his songs avoid the kind of pitfalls that have tended to make his country’s music a bit kitschy to our ears. As the best kind of crossover artist, Rahman’s tunes captivate in any language, sometimes blending English with Indian vocals, combining bagpipes with pop percussion, or reaching a transcendent beat that would play just as well at a club in Los Angeles as it would one in Mumbai. And here, it’s only the beginning of musical wealth that India’s coolest composer will spin out thanks to SLUMDOG’s deserved success.
Click HERE to buy
THE BETRAYAL
For this documentary about Vietnam War refugees that’s been 23 years in the making, Howard Shore uses a spare approach that’s all the more emotionally affecting for its impassioned cello playing and Laotian singing. It’s a trembling, haunting elegy to the ruined lives of the past and the worrisome hope for the future in America, a sound that’s as spiritual in its own way as Shore’s other darkly religious score for DOUBT.
Click HERE to Buy
THE POSSIBILITY OF AN ISLAND
Mathis Nitschke makes an impressive composing debut with this French post-apocalyptic cloning fable. If Jerry Goldsmith went for primal sounds in PLANET OF THE APES as characters wandered across a desert Forbidden Zone, then Nitschke goes for stunningly orchestrations, ranging from big symphonic reveals to a solo viola, piano or harp representing one clone’s existential sadness. It’s the kind of intriguingly unique music that Europeans seem to hear more than us - a scoring debut that opens the mouth with the wonder of who the heck this guy is. Hopefully we’ll be finding out a lot more in Nitschke's musical future, one that signifies anything but an end of days.
Click HERE to Buy
SHADOWS
While JACK BROOKS’ composer Ryan Shore isn’t slaying any monsters here, he more than proves he’s got the chops for a sophisticated, psychological thriller- even one from Macedonia. His SHADOWS shows there’s a universal, musical language to conveying haunted characters, from creepy samples and a ghostly female voice to spine-chillingly beautiful themes, the kind of melodies that are all about achieving a personal, and spiritual transcendence as The Light finally comes a calling. It’s a hip way of hearing the age-old sound of a ghost story, a score whose creativity never says die.
Click HERE to Buy
TOM CLANCY’S H.A.W.X.
When it came to scoring the author’s previous two GHOST RECON warplane games, Tom Salta proved himself to be Tom Clancy’s answer to Maverick. Now with H.A.W.X., Salta achieves a propulsive, theme-driven sound that would be at home in any Jerry Bruckheimer film, let alone a videogame flight simulator. Salta’s always going full-throttle, with a grand orchestra, deep choral booms and bursts of sampled percussion slamming home the game’s constant need for speed. Yet beyond the bombast, Salta knows how to weave together his cues with a strong motif that never gets tiring as a listen. Sure H.A.W.X. might not re-invent the book on action-spectacle scoring, but the souped-up musical dog fighting is three G’s of fun.
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TRANSYLVANIA 6-500
Buysoundtrax has dug up Lee Holdridge’s horror spoof score from a grave last visited on LP in 1985. And the musical results are as ghoulishly funny as ever. Like John Morris’ similarly satiric YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN, Holdridge takes the overtly ominous sound of classic Universal horror scores like THE WOLFMAN, then brightens up the orchestration a bit to let you know it’s ok to smile through the thundering strings and stabbing violins- a cauldron of nostalgia that’s topped off with Gypsy violins and jazzy tips of the hat to “Pennsylvania 6-500.” Holdridge’s knowing humor is also on hand for KOGOTH OF BARBARIA, wherein the BEASTMASTER composer unleashes hilarious heavy metal fury and darkly cheesy synths for the sluggish, violent hero. It’s music that makes me wish even more that Adult Swim had picked up this hilarious CONAN goof.
Click HERE to Buy
THE TUDORS: SEASON 2
Trevor Morris distills 80 minutes of neo-Medieval goodness from the four hours he scored from the last season of Showtime’s acclaimed, sexy take on Henry VIII. And like the show, Morris gives an intoxicating taste of how the music of Olde England can sound contemporarily hip without betraying its historical roots. Here courtly instruments blend with strong melodic writing and mesmerizing samples, all while beautifully eerie female voices weave about the soundtrack as if they were the cries of the king’s cruelly belated wives.
Find these soundtracks at these .com’s: Amazon, Buysoundtrax, Intrada, iTunes. Screen Archives and Varese Sarabande
Click HERE to Buy
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