Buy it... only if you are an established collector of David Holmes' music, because it exists as an extension of the artist's solo works rather than this particular film.

Avoid it... if you require film music that functions within any of the basic parameters in which scores typically operate, regardless of style.

Analyze That: (David Holmes) With New York's most powerful gangster now "getting in touch with his feelings," this sequel to the highly popular Analyze This returns the same principle cast under the direction of Harold Ramis for another go-around of psychiatrist versus mob boss fun. The allure of the concept, while still providing for a few laughs given Robert De Niro's tendency to turn the mobster concept into a parody at any given moment, had faded significantly since the original 1999 hit. Much of this lackluster diminishment in laughs came because of the sequel script's unfortunate attempts to insert serious drama involving Billy Crystal's character into an environment suited better to straight parody of "The Sopranos" and other pop culture representations of the mafia. The original film featured a hip score with comedic Italian music references by composer Howard Shore, released by Varèse Sarabande on a very rare (and probably retracted) album. With Shore focusing his attention on the immensity of The Lord of the Rings franchise in the early 2000's, the producers of Analyze That agreed to hired the up and coming talent of David Holmes to produce the score for the sequel film. Holmes, an Irish electronic musician, was a relative newcomer to the scoring scene, though fans of his bass-heavy, funky electronica had long claimed that his music resembled the style of retro soundtracks for nearly a decade. His lively and diverse combination of rhythms, samples, and live musicians sparked a cult-like following outside of the film music scene. His entry into film scores came largely when he was hired by Steven Soderbergh for two of his successful films, Out of Sight and Ocean's Eleven.

Holmes' music for those films was greeting with praise from both his traditional fans and film music enthusiasts, despite the fact that they exist on an island completely separate from the basic rules of traditional film scoring. His assignment to Analyze That marked the third major scoring job for Holmes. Whether you will enjoy his music or not will depend completely on your opinion of this genre of sound and Holmes' tendency to ignore the typical structures that you hear from career film composers. In the context of a project like Analyze That, Holmes' music is undoubtedly an adequate work, for the film requires nothing of any seriously dramatic tone to further its comedy. The score is very fluid and continuous in its style, and while it lacks a recurring theme, it relies on its easily distinguishable style of positive rhythm and electronic samplings to succeed in producing a unique character. There is no orchestral ensemble hired for accompaniment and no remarkable solo performance. The dominant rhythms are built on a foundation of jazzy funk, and Holmes then inserts techno and electronica synthesizer effects and motifs on that consistent base of operation. Holmes is also able to frequently insert layers upon layers of samples, and no better an example of this is heard than in the opening track, in which a female voice saying "oh, yeah" is mixed at appropriate beats and even the sound of a wristwatch alarm clock does the same. Analyze That doesn't have as much of the overtly appealing funky personality (in tribute to the Las Vegas style of Lalo Schifrin) as Ocean's Eleven, but the same sense of urban sophistication is present. The somewhat dense, accelerated sound is refreshing in the context of this setting, and Holmes' busy loops and processing of retro sounds into modern electronic instrumentation is interesting, if not an easily flowing listening experience on album.

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The detractors of the album aren't many amongst the die-hard fans of Holmes' rearrangement of familiar ingredients in his earlier scores and especially on his own solo albums. The score does suffer from a few basic flaws that will likely not affect the livelihood of a rather shallow comedy like Analyze That. It is music that would work exceedingly well in a nightclub atmosphere, mixed into freestyle cues that blatantly ignore synchronization points. In many ways, each cue serves like source music (and some of it is truly intended as such in the film's mix), though it's hard to match a cue like "Car Showroom" with the actual environment you'd hear in such a place. That sound is sufficient for the genre on album, but it doesn't hold true to the basic rules of scoring for films; there is no punch line accentuation, nor is there any single sharp cue change that would indicate that something funny was said on screen (or perhaps even a change of scene has happened). In these regards, the score functions as only the most basic form of background entertainment, potentially neglecting specific moments that need a musical twist in the film. The only cue for which the mood may not match entirely is the Sushi Bar scene, for which Holmes' used slight guitar plucking in an Asian sense with a strangely loungey and almost-Latin rhythm. Additionally, the score features no central theme, though the rhythm of the title sequence does return in the Strip Club cue for good measure. Finally, the album is relatively short and ends without so much as a basic repetition of this lively rhythm, leaving the listener wondering why the music just slowly dies off and stops. In any case, this score is an extension of the Holmes style that listeners of his previous scores will be very contented with, but traditional film music fans will find it very repetitive, tedious, and lacking the basic characteristics of a film score. **   Amazon.com Price Hunt: CD or Download