Buy it... only if you are an avid fan of the film itself, because Mark Isham's score is not noteworthy in either his career or the genre of vampires and urban combat.

Avoid it... if you expect any emotional depth to carry the more romantic side of any vampire story, even ones as mindlessly violent as this.

Isham

Blade: (Mark Isham) For those who don't require much intelligent thought when enjoying gore and profanity on screen, Blade is a 1998 adaptation from a comic strip which features the creature battles on and under our city streets. At war are vampires and Wesley Snipes' Blade character (a half vampire/half human "daywalker"), who is intent on stopping the pureblood vampires from raising evil gods, beginning the apocalypse, and increasing everyone's insurance rates. The concept was successful enough to bring Snipes back in search for his partner (Kris Kristofferson, who supposedly dies in this first film) for an even more mindless sequel in 2002. Being British director Stephen Norrington's first American film, Blade was also a first of sorts for composer Mark Isham, whose career was highlighted at the time by scenic dramas and classy urban jazz rather than trashy horror flicks. For Blade, Isham would drop all of the sensibilities that had defined his work, for the film would replace Isham's usual delicacies (heard with great popularity in the likes of Fly Away Home and A River Runs Through It) with the imagery of considerable property damage and nasty deaths. While many people may classify it as a standard horror/action film only, Blade is also owes much to the vampire subgenre, opening realms in which Isham could explore the romantic, though deeply troubled minds of the title character and his opponents. Isham's choice for the identity of the score, however, would be one of total atmosphere and minimal extroversion or description. There is very little romance to float the music at all. Nor, interestingly, is there much in the way of rhythmically satisfying action. Instead, you hear a highly textured, mood-driven score, treating the film much like the film treats it location; you can never really get a grasp on either. The vagueness of the music, therefore, does little more than establish the basic mood for the concept and then continue with that gloomy affair for the entirety of the film's length. The most interesting moments of the score are provided by an interpretation of 'Rainbow Voice' from "Hearing Solar Winds," written and performed by David Hykes, a piece that produces the only emotionally constructive cue with the help of a moderately sized orchestral string section.

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The remainder of the score, consisting of Isham's own material, is presented through electronic soundscapes, with vast, wandering phrases of disharmony taking seemingly aimless steps in any convenient direction. The very basic electronic droning of the bass occasionally shifts at accelerated speeds, but these lengthy cues fail to stir up adequate emotion to represent the action on screen. Isham does offer some varied accompanying instrumentation that uses sonic colors to save a few cues in Blade. A rare acoustic rhythm, ranging from the barely noticeable to the more forceful rap variety, arises in two or three cues, but never does it last long enough to fully situate the score in an urban setting. Synthesized representations of metallic clanging sometimes battle with each other, echoing the sounds of a sword or knife fight on screen. The noises themselves aren't highly original, but their use in a film heavy on the emphasis on metallic props and gray scenery is a welcome diversion from the gloom of the low-intensity electronic droning. The eerie inclusion of a choir is not in your typical fashion; the group often performs with the same striking disregard for harmony and direction as the electronics of the underscore, with several branches of the choir conflicting with each other in several cues. This effect is original in its texture, especially in the lengthy "Bleeding Stone" cue, but it's extremely difficult to tolerate on album. In that cue, as well as the following "Blood God," Isham utilizes the minimal presence of a fuller orchestra (with a pipe organ for much needed depth) to introduce very simplistic motifs in between his continued electronic meanderings. Those cues do finally begin to provide some emotional reach into the troubled story, using a series of slowly rising (though still dissonant) chords to crank up the attention to the music. Likewise, on the short album there are a handful of short sequences near the product's end in which Blade begins to establish badly overdue momentum. But the mood dissipates too quickly to sustain any final, fleeting interest, leaving the overall listening experience as one of little notice or importance. While it was a worthy genre to test for Isham, it wasn't one that captured the spirit of either the vampires or wicked combat, and young horror master Marco Beltrami would supply a more popular score for Blade II several years later. **   Amazon.com Price Hunt: CD or Download

Bias Check:

For Mark Isham reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 2.9 (in 21 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 2.88 (in 8,084 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.