> I like this one. It's entertaining and its full of mystery, but anyway,
> when I say the film for a second time I found out that a lot of music is
> not present in the CD (about an hour and a half), including the part where
> the helicopters shoot the alien ship, which I think is a great amount of
> percussive music. It would be great to have a bootleg of this soundtrack.
>
JMG

Hi,

I must say I also liked this score. At first it was anonymus, underscore music that perfectly creates the mood, but after few listenings, this score really started to stick in my head. Yeah, it isn't pleasent listening experience, Howard shows lot of suspense music, distinctive electronics, slow background melodies, but the best in this score are the moments of wonder and awe, like in "Debate" or "The Weasel", especially when Jonesy sees the giant alien for the first time, the music is both majestic but also VERY creepy, almost freezing, this moment is great on score and in film. Also the strings-work in this track is pretty impressive, it is not pleasent to listen but as for horror music, it's first-rate.

When it comes to action music, I found it rather repetitive. Yes, I love when JNH uses powerful percussion, but such a music he used in countless of his other scores. Earlier, I found it rather awesome, nowadays such music starts to tires me, the same drum-lead music You can find both in Hidalgo, Dinosaur, Vertical Limit etc. Yeah, I know, it's well orchestrated and very rhythmic (it's cool btw ), but it is hardly new element of Howard's soundscape.

It's still a bit anonymus music, almost non-thematic (except of fine electronic-theme for the youth of friends) but has it "something". As for me it's ***1/2 score.

Tomek