For all of the fans of the original album, the
sequel was a much anticipated announcement. Nic Raine and the City of Prague
Philharmonic Orchestra had pretty much nailed the core Barry sound while
updating it for the increased clarity and power of a modern recording. The
first disc covered the films during Connery's (oh, and let's not forget
Lazenby) stint on the long running franchise. Of course, the were many great
scores that came out of the Roger Moore years as well as Barry's final
outing on The Living Daylights
(with Timothy Dalton).
A quick glance of the track titles will reveal
that neither Live and Let Die or License to Kill is
represented on this disc. The linear notes explain that the style of Live
and Let Die was far too 70s to be updated for a full orchestra, while
the cues from License to Kill were too lengthy to provide a good overview
without running out of space on the disc. I can understand the reasoning
behind Live and Let Die, but I still wish they would've tried to
include some of the cues from Kamen's score.
As for what is included, it is quite a
nice selection. Barry gets his suites, while the other composers are
regulated to a few short cues, or even just the title song in the case of For
Your Eyes Only. The latter is unfortunate since Conti had some more
traditionally orchestrated cues near the end of the film that I would've
liked to have had on here, but beggars can't be choosers, right?
As can be expected, the Barry selections are
quite good. While The Man with the Golden Gun may have been one of
the weaker installments in the film series, Barry's music certainly isn't.
The ethnic feel along with the frequent references to the main title song
make it quite enjoyable. Raine absolutely nails his performance of the suite
from A View to a Kill, even down to the screeching guitar riff.
Really, only The Living Daylights is a disappointment here, and it is
really curious since the previous selections are all wonderful. Actually,
things don't go downhill on those cues until the electronic percussion comes
into play in Hercules Takes Off and Necros Attacks. The tempo
is sped up for these two cues, which I actually really enjoy, and the
percussion unit itself is dead-on, but the brass section just doesn't sound
right. They don't seem to be holding their notes long enough. It's only this
small error that pretty much ruins these two cues. Hercules Takes Off
is passable, but the problem is highly evident in Necros Attacks. All
the other selections from that score are well done, however.
The disc ends with a sort of "bonus"
track. Those who are in on the history of Bond scores know the story
already. The released version of this cue on the original Goldeneye
soundtrack was composer
Eric Serra's original cue. However, because that cue sucked really
bad (in my humble little opinion of course), John Altman was called in to
re-score this portion of the film (and frankly, I wish they'd have junked
the whole score and gotten a real composer to do it). The end result
is rather mundane and not anything really special, but at least we have it
on CD now, right? I wish they would've taken a shot at orchestrating the
opening sequence (the only good cue on the whole Goldeneye CD), as
that would've made for an interesting track.
While I don't view this release as being as solid as
the original was, it is still a good sequel to the first album. Barry fans
should definitely take a look. ****
