SF/Fantasy Soundtrack Reviews

Here you'll find a mix of soundtrack reviews - old and new - covering a wide range of TV series and movies. If there is anything you'd like to read about here, please let us know.

Highlander: The Series - Volume 1

Featuring music composed by series regular, Roger Bellon, this 22-track CD features a selection of music taken from episodes spanning the first three seasons of Rysher's Highlander TV series. As with The X-Files, Highlander is one of only a couple of shows that has all of its original music composed by just one musician, although surprisingly, the quality doesn't suffer as a result.

After bypassing the rather dodgy cover artwork, you are presented with information on all of the tracks present with short notes from Roger Bellon on each, along with details on the episodes they are taken from. Rather than stick to just a couple of episodes for the theme of the CD (as is the case with so many television soundtrack albums), Roger has taken tracks that have been used in well over 20 episodes to give a much wider variety in songs. The pieces vary from dark, moody themes to light-hearted, almost frivolous tracks and add up to over an hour of listening pleasure. The pieces he has chosen are a combination of some of his own personal favourites, and specific requests from Highlander fans who wanted to hear their own favourites on CD.

While I'm sure that there are pieces that fans would love to have heard on this CD, you can't please all the people all the time, and I think Roger has done a great job compiling a CD with wide ranging appeal. Most fans will recognise many of the pieces immediately, even if they can't remember the episode titles, and when they are this varied I don't think anyone will complain.

One thing I was most impressed with was a remark from Roger Bellon in the sleeve notes where he talks about his choices, and he says that if anyone has any favourites that they'd like to hear on a follow-up CD, he openly invites fans to contact him and to aid this further, provides his e-mail address! Now, how many other composers can you think of who'd do that? I'm sure that for the next CD he will be bombarded with requests for the theme tune, the stunning music from the Season Four opener "Homeland", and from some of the guitar pieces played by Jim Byrnes.

Overall, this is a superb CD with plenty of variety in the musical styles present, and it is absolutely astonishing to think that virtually the entire CD is synthesiser based. This should be an essential part of any Highlander fan's collection. My only gripe is that the CD only contains the pieces by Roger Bellon, and doesn't feature any of the Queen songs used in the series, nor does it feature the title track, "Princes Of The Universe". However, that aside, this is an excellent purchase, and I for one can't wait for the next volume.

Reviewer: Simon Plumbe

Mortal Kombat

Let Mortal Kombat begin! Though many of you will no doubt believe that this will be Mortal Kombat between this soundtrack and your eardrums due to Utah Saints rather high profile in association with the movie you will be rather pleasantly surprised to find that they have only contributed one track to this 17 piece sound extravaganza.

The varied pieces making up this compact disc certainly hand together well as an anthology and due to the nature of the movie and its varied fight sequences the music ties in very well with the films dynamic imagery... but does it stand up well on its own?

Well style variations prevent any form of over-conformity or boredom as you listen to the soundtrack and you will notice that some of the pieces (5 out of the 17 in fact) did not appear in the movie at all! From "A Taste Of Things To Come" through to "Final Kombat" this CD takes you through an aural roller-coaster adrenaline rush of a ride depositing you dazed yet refreshed at its termination!

Even the Utah Saints track fits in nicely (though it is very Utah Saints!), but for me (and my daughter, Sophie agrees) the best track has to be "The Immortals" featuring the sampled speech from the original arcade game mixed into the theme tune from the movie and really brings forth a vision of a virtual reality version of the game - it's just that kind of tune (be warned young children cannot resist dancing to it!).

Fans of the movie should love it and I can recommend it to virtually any music lover who can appreciate any of the forms of dance/jungle/techno music.

Reviewer: Sven Harvey

Star Wars Special Edition Soundtracks

To tie-in with the release of the special editions of the Star Wars movies, RCA released accompanying soundtracks to all three films. Each soundtrack is presented as a 2-CD set and is available as a standard and deluxe collectors edition. Both versions feature a comprehensive booklet containing notes on all of the music, with the collectors edition featuring the cover as a metallic embossed image and the CDs being located in a small hardback book. In addition to this, the collectors edition CDs are laser etched to give a prismatic hologram effect when held to the light depicting images relating to the film in question.

All three albums feature tracks that have never been released before, and many of the pieces are extended over previously heard versions, making these the most complete releases of the soundtracks to-date.

Star Wars is naturally the high point of the set although all three are a wonderful testament to composer, John Williams. When listening to any of the albums, you can immediately begin to visualise the scenes that the score is taken from and each piece is easily recognisable. With so many soundtracks nowadays lacking originality, it is refreshing to hear just how a movie soundtrack SHOULD be done.

All of the music featured is so emotionally charged and individual in styles that you are drawn into the listening experience. The sense of impending doom as the Imperial March plays from The Empire Strikes Back is striking, and the piece from the assault on the Death Star sequence from Star Wars manages to beautifully convey the drama and tension of the scale of the attack in progress.

The only disappointment I found with the CDs was with Return Of The Jedi. Here there is the omission of two tracks that can be found on the previous releases of the soundtrack. A couple of scenes in the film have been re-filmed or feature extensive new footage and as such were also re-scored, notable the Jabba's Palace sequence and the closing celebrations. However, on the album only the new music is featured and it would have been nice to have had the original pieces left in as bonus tracks.

All three soundtracks are absolutely superb and I can't recommend them enough to any Star Wars enthusiast. However, of the two versions, I think that the deluxe edition is a much better purchase for the die-hard afficionado with the standard release being better for those of you just interested in the music. A word of caution regarding the deluxe edition is that of its price. Make sure you shop around before spending your money. I have seen the price vary between £34.99 and £38.99 and if you intend on buying all three, you are talking about a difference of £12.

Reviewer: Simon Plumbe