Buy it... only if you seek a more overtly Western variation on the simplistic structures and rendering of Trevor Rabin's Armageddon.

Avoid it... if you agree that there's something just a little fishy about the tedious use of a masculine, rock-informed style of music for the Old West.

Rabin

American Outlaws: (Trevor Rabin) There was a short time in the early 2000's when Hollywood produced intellectually devoid period movies like A Knight's Tale and American Outlaws that thrust teenage heartthrobs and electric guitars into historical circumstances where nobody but prepubescent girls could actually take the viewing experience seriously. Les Mayfield's American Outlaws exists at such a fundamentally ridiculous level of attempted coolness that it blows whatever chance it may have had at redefining the character of Jesse James. The film is a glazed doughnut of teenage testosterone, muscle with a Western attitude, glitzed up with Matrix-inspired shots of explosive violence and an eye opening role for Timothy Dalton. It would be best to put aside the complete stupidity of the film before discussing its score, but is that even possible? Trevor Rabin's career hasn't exactly included films of the highest quality. He was hired to a string of projects like American Outlaws because of the industry's perception that his blend of orchestral, synthetic, and rock band elements made his music hip in the new definition of blockbuster music created by Hans Zimmer's Media Ventures outfit. The elite of film score collecting, those in their 50's and 60's (at the time) who grew up on Elmer Bernstein Westerns in all their blazing glory, never paid the least amount of attention to a score like American Outlaws. And why should they? To them, music like this is a joke. When both Trevor Rabin and James Bond go West, there's reason to become suspicious immediately. Maybe not so much so for Rabin, though, whose single mainstream success so far (for the mass population of partially educated movie-goers) has been Armageddon, a score which had its own brand of country western feel. Because of his years as lead guitarist with the rock group "Yes," a common theme in many of Rabin's scores is the guitar, so, after all, why wouldn't he fit it into the new definition of the Western genre with ease?

Never mind the fact that his music for things like this is brainless; this is what audiences wanted to hear. At least in a film like The One, this sound was somewhat warranted. In American Outlaws, however, it truly is laughable. Still, if you were one of those exuberant fans of Rabin's masculine score for Armageddon, then praise the universe and thank the score gods for American Outlaws. Alas, your second coming has arrived. If you strip away three or four of the extremely cliched Western motifs that Rabin has employed in his programming and arrangement of this score, you get Armageddon, part II. The choppy orchestra hits continue to slap the listener in the face with such ferocity that they dispose of any notion of style and, in their mixing process, they manage to sound fake as usual, too. What's the point of assembling an ensemble of live players when you're going to take those recordings and mix them with electronic percussion, samples, guitars, or other elements in such a fashion that the entire product sounds as though it is synthetic? In that case, save the money and use the glorified samples from the library. The one cue that almost stretches out of this stylistic rut is "Farewell and Hello, Key West," which sounds like something Mark Mancina would have written as an imitation of Aaron Copland or other genre staples, but even this cue succumbs to a heavy bass region and flat ambient range. One would think that Rabin and his friends at Media Ventures would take John Powell as an example and add some reverberation to those hits, giving them a chance of seeming less falsely staggered in a tiresome staccato methodology. The mixing of strings into an electronic soundscape, such as the somewhat pretty "First Kiss," was the budding symbol of romance in modern films of dubious quality, and it is essentially a variation on the theme for Armageddon here. The acoustics and percussion of American Outlaws continue to amaze in their lack of creativity and maturation over the period that came in between the scores.

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No review of American Outlaws would be complete without a shout out to the electric guitar, of course, which blesses this film's scenic West of yesteryear with its late 20th Century high-pitched whining. At least Rabin touches upon the realm of parody in "Acoustic Outlaws," a cue that was hopefully meant to be entertainingly comedic. George S. Clinton writes this kind of musical satire with better wit, though. Granted, the guitar's role in this work is more pleasant than in the utterly disgraceful Con Air, but there's no majesty to this score, no title theme rip-off from Deep Blue Sea to at least allow the listener a guilty pleasure that doesn't relate to the music for an asteroid flick. Instead, all you get are the same old stock cues pulled from the depths of synthesizer purgatory and allowed to shine for one brief moment with some nebulous orchestral accompaniment until, inevitably, they are pulled from the same depths once again for another future project with a budget much higher than the tone of the music would indicate. The mock Western theme in "Brief Reunion" and "Jesse's Ride" has no dynamic scope, no sense of adventure, no unique or redeeming value, and no reason to make anyone excited. In short, in case you hadn't picked up on the vibes thus far, this score is a waste of time. It's not that Rabin's music is hideously unlistenable; in fact, there are short sequences when his synthetically enhanced romance material is quite enjoyable. But who wants to hear the same score over and over again? This is stock music for a stock film, and if you already own Armageddon, then there's little point in investigating its tired ranks. Not that any of this was unexpected, of course. You reach a certain point as a score collector when you've just heard enough of (or been bludgeoned by) a particular sound. Ask yourself this: what would Rabin produce if he was found in the unenviable position of scoring a Woody Allen film? Now that would be worth a listen, especially if that's what it takes to resurrect Rabin's career into something that benefits the industry in all its diversity. **   Amazon.com Price Hunt: CD or Download

Bias Check:

For Trevor Rabin reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 2.5 (in 12 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 2.64 (in 12,557 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.