Not Your Music for Rosies... or Posies
Something about a good horror score seemingly prevents a timely soundtrack release, right? Bernard Herrmann's disturbing original recording for strings (a.k.a. Psycho) is still not available, although some fantastic re-recordings have been made as the wait continues. Twenty years passed before music from The Changeling or The Howling was separated from the screen. Ten years disappeared before anyone heard Philip Glass's terrifying, minimalistic Candyman music on its own. For many today, waiting even two minutes for a fast food joint to cook up some piping hot fries is a deeply grievous test of patience, so it makes sense that a three year wait for music from The Ring is tantamount to a lifetime of anguish. Hans Zimmer's The Ring soundtrack CD (Decca) is finally available! The composer, known for high-energy fist-pumping music heard in essentially every Jerry Bruckheimer-produced movie since Days of Thunder, shows remarkable restraint in this atmospherically moody soundscape. Piano solos drift through fog banks of darkly lush strings as thunderous cellos give way to delicate chimes in what many Zimmerites say is the composer's best score. Released in time for the sequel film The Ring Two (directed by Hideo Nakata in a nice twist - he's the director of Ringu, the original Japanese version upon which this American series is based), the CD also features music composed by Henning Lohner and cellist Martin Tillman for the new film. The sequel score utilises Zimmer's themes from the first film, although the CD includes only Lohner and Tillman's contributions. Orchestrally based, the new music introduces an ambient texture (closer perhaps to "soft" electronica) to the overall score, driven by drum kit. There will be no secrets, however: the final minutes of the CD witness a thrashing of thematic elements as if the ghosts of Pantera showed up to record a new album before The Ring crew had a chance to leave the studio. The horror!
PK (3/10/2005)see all reviews, or add a review
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