| CD REVIEW Brian Tyler |
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Band : Brian Tyler Hey…first a word about the composer of this soundtrack, perhaps? Okay, so…Brian Tyler is an American composer, producer, and conductor of his own scores. His musical career started at a young age, young Brian being inspired by his grandfather Walter H. Tyler, whom travelled the US and Russia performing at concerts with his own-written and composed pieces. Brian attended UCLA and Harvard University, and after a couple of years he started to play in orchestras, choirs and ensembles…usiang insttruments such as piano, classical percussion, guitar, bass, bouzouki, mandolin, keyboards, and drums. In other words, a well-rounded multi-instrumental musician! Brian also made a step in the world of Rock, guesting for the likes of Elton John, Taylor Hawkins, and Slash…but his great love remained with orchestral music, which at a certain moment comes to the ears of renowned producer Robert Kraft. Impressed with what he heard, Kraft encouraged Brian to start a career in film scoring…which the latter started in 1997 on the soundtrack of the independent movie Bartender. In the following years, Tyler would make 4-5 scores per annum, but it wasn’t until the soundtrack of 2001 movie Frailty, before he made his big breakthrough. Since then, he’s collaborated on the soundtracks of 38 movies to date (29 of which had a soundtrack album released for), including (just naming the ones that are familiar to me now) Jane Doe (2001), Last Call (2002), Darkness Falls, Children Of Dune, Star Trek: Enterprise, The Big Empty (2003), The Final Cut (2004), Annapolis and Constantine (2005), The Fast And The Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006), Aliens Vs. Predator: Requiem (2007), Rambo and Eagle Eye (2008), Dragonball Evolution, Fast & Furious, The Killing Room, and eventually The Final Destination (2009. And just to give you a hint of how popular this guys really is, I can tell you there’s already 3 scores of 2010 movies you’ll be able to hear his music in! Prizes Tyler won: an Emmynomination for 2002’s Last Call, International Film Music Critics Association Award for 2004’s The Final Cut and 2005’s Constantine, BSOSpirit Award for Best Score Of The Year in 2004 for his 2003 soundtracks of Children Of Dune and Darkness Falls, Now about the movie, actually a series of movies…and those who’ve already seen one of the 4 films will be able to tell you these are horror flicks of a high quality in the “teenager-slasher” genre. It would take me too long to get into the story, but basically a group of people die in a series of somewhat bizarre accidents that seems to follow the possible survivors. Movie one begins with main character Alex stepping on a plane with his fellow high school students for a trip to Paris. While waiting for the plane to start, Alex has a nightmare dream in which the plane explodes after lift-off. Shaken awake, he makes quite a commotion getting off the plane, and eventually 7 people get off. As expected, the plane indeed explodes upon lift-off, killing all travellers and crew! The slightly paranormal Alex then finds out the people on the plane all had to die according to a Plan, in which the seating in the plane was apparently important. Soon, people that got off the plane start dying according to the Plan’s sequence…and for the rest of the story, my dearies, please see the movie, or rather, movies (plural) since the story lended itself to sequels! In fact, it’s become quite a cult favourite among horror movie fans. Now to the music, and those among you fearing the word “composer” when it comes to music in general…because it kinda implies orchestral music of the Classical (or rather Neo-Classical) type, doesn’t it?…may well be right! Although…let’s not forget that this IS movie soundtrack music, and that for a horror movie to boot! Actually, the music is very graphical (performed to perfection by The Czech Philharmonic), even if devoid of sound samples from the movie itself, and as this is a horror flick, you can expect a lot of tension-building moments! In total, you get 23 tracks, starting with the Industrial Metal flavoured title track (yes yes, electric guitar is actually being used here), and ending with the 13 ½ minute-long “The Final Destination Suite”. In between, music was composed to fit certain passages in the movie, leading to such track titles as “Memorial”, “Nick’s Google Theory”, “Revelations”, “Stay Away From Water”, “Moment Of Joy”, “Signs And Signals”, “George Is Next” “Car Washicide”, “Premonition”, “Questioning”, etc… Out on Varèse Sarabande, a label with a long-standing tradition in quality motion picture soundtracks, the album lasts a good 64 ½ minutes…which leaves but very little time in the movie for non-musically accompanied passages, I guess! End conclusion: A wonderful piece of music, worthy of the highest rating, whether you happen to be into Neo-Classic music or not! An addition to my year-lists, in a category quite of its own!!! 98/100 Tony. |