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Bond: Back in Action 2: (Compilation) Almost one
year after releasing the first album of this series, spanning
Dr.
No to
Diamonds are Forever, the Silva Screen label delivered
on its promise to continue its re-recordings of famous James Bond
underscores with the City of Prague Philharmonic. Like the first album,
this second compilation concentrates on the best action and
conversational score cues while providing a minimum of the over-recorded
themes themselves. Beginning with
The Man with the Golden Gun and
concluding with
Goldeneye, "Bond: Back in Action 2" includes the
more contemporary sound that modern Bond score fans had been requesting
from Silva ever since the preceding album. Two notable omissions include
Paul McCartney/George Martin's
Live and Let Die and Michael
Kamen's
License to Kill. The former was deemed too incongruous
with the remainder of the material on the compilation because of the
score's outlandish and dated 1970's style. The absence of Kamen's score
is a bit more perplexing, though producer James Fitzpatrick explained
that the only really viable portions from that score had already been
released previously by Silva on an older album. As film score collectors
know, that reason hasn't stopped Silva in the past, which is why it
doesn't make sense here (especially with some space left on the CD). The
remaining scores, however, work well together, with a style made
consistent enough through careful arrangements to sustain a continuous
listen. Most die-hard James Bond fans (the type who religiously tuned in
to those "15 Days of 007" Bond marathons on the TNT cable channel) will
argue that the only truly fitting and enjoyable scores in the franchise
have been composed by John Barry and David Arnold. As such, with the
Arnold scores hopefully awaiting treatment by Silva at some point in the
future, there is an understandable emphasis on the Barry music during
the time period represented on this album.
The best person for the job of arranging, orchestrating,
and conducting these Barry tracks is Nic Raine, whose expertise from
working on a few of the Bond films with Barry (as well as others)
qualifies him beyond all others. His mastery of recreating Barry's style
makes the performances he conducts of the composer's works (by the City
of Prague Philharmonic) the best fans will probably ever hear. His
credentials in this respect were solidified with the full score
re-reconstruction and recording of
Raise the Titanic in 1999, one
of the best resurrections ever attempted. The "Bond: Back in Action 2"
album begins with a Barry score that most people have forgotten about,
likely because the film was so poor. The three suites from
The Man
with the Golden Gun are an interesting study, held back by one of
the more awkward Bond themes but exhibiting some of the more
interesting, ethnically charged Bond music on the album. It could be
argued that the ensemble had the most difficulty adapting the
distinctive tones of the 1970's in these recordings, and the stumbling
progressions of Barry's main theme for the film doesn't help. As far as
the limited selections from
The Spy Who Loved Me and
For Your
Eyes Only are concerned, the biggest challenge for Raine was finding
a way to orchestrate and perform snippets of these Marvin Hamlisch and
Bill Conti scores in a fashion that didn't conflict with the mass of
Barry's music. Thankfully, Raine and Fitzpatrick chose wisely when
assembling which cues to adapt. The two
The Spy Who Loved Me
tracks are lightweights, but refrain from the overheard song theme. The
opposite approach is taken with
For Your Eyes Only, for which the
"instrumental" version of the very attractive title theme is performed
(sadly minus the fugelhorn solos from the original recording). That
theme could well have been the best James Bond theme written to date if
Conti hadn't been the one to arrange it into its hopelessly dated
form.
Nevertheless, the album's selling points are the
previously unreleased John Barry tracks. Along with some interesting,
newly released material from
The Man with the Golden Gun are two
refreshingly unheard minutes from
Moonraker. One of the most
overlooked Bond scores,
Moonraker is a gorgeous Barry work
featuring melodies that would later be further developed in
High Road
to China and
Out of Africa. While only a short performance of
the elegant title theme is provided, the entire, six-minute space flight
sequence is performed with resolute power and Barry's trademark,
ethereal female choir of the era. Smart choices are also made with
Octopussy, as a medley of its very best moments amount to over
seven minutes on this album. The title theme from that score is played
in full, followed by some of the better stock action sound from Barry's
1980's Bond films. Raine may not have captured the bass from "The Palace
Fight" completely accurately, but the suite leaves the traditional Bond
theme at the end of the track for good measure. Another great asset of
this album is the five-minute suite from
A View to a Kill. Along
with the soft version of the title theme performed by horn and flute, as
well as the pulsating chase music (which remains one of the more
tasteful uses of an electric guitar ever in the franchise), the
long-awaited "Fanfare" cue is finally recorded for a commercial album.
The heroic and powerful statement of the title theme can be heard most
prominently during the scene in which Bond rescues his love interest
from the burning city hall of San Francisco and descends a fire truck
ladder. The cue is a very welcome addition to any Bond music collection.
The best of all of Barry's later Bond scores is easily his swan song,
The Living Daylights, from which a significant amount of material
is provided on this compilation. Unfortunately, this is the only section
in which both the City of Prague Philharmonic and Nic Raine
stumble.
During the "Hercules Take Off" and "Necros Attacks"
tracks from
The Living Daylights (the action-oriented orchestral
renditions of two of the film's songs, one for the film overall and the
other for its primary henchman), the electronic bass is very well
arranged and performed (once again earning kudo points for Mark Ayres).
But with rather flat brass performances and a tempo in rhythm that is
slightly too fast for the material, the ensemble fails to muster the
same style as the original. It seems as though the ensemble hesitates on
every note, making sure to enunciate each one clearly, but that has the
effect of restraining the music's inherent energetic appeal. Easily the
most disappointing performance on the entire album comes with the
alternative end title arrangement of the love ballad from
The Living
Daylights. Raine, for whatever reason, decided to alter one note in
the theme's interlude, causing four instances in the whole performance
during which the recording causes you to shudder from the difference. It
might seem at first like a singular performance error, but after the
same sequence is missed four times in succession, Raine's arrangement
must be to blame. Given his faithfulness to Barry's original recording,
it's hard to reconcile this error, and it might ruin the cue for fans of
the score. In any case, the flubs in
The Living Daylights might
go unnoticed to those who are only casual fans of Bond themes, but it
will bother those who care about the details. The final track on the
album is almost not worth mentioning, because it represents perhaps the
darkest chapter in the history of Bond music. Even
Live and Let
Die is more tolerable than Eric Serra's
Goldeneye, and the
fact that six minutes from the latter score are on this album is
unforgivable. Even rearranged, orchestrated, and performed by a
considerable number of musicians, the music is simply beyond redemption.
Its uncoordinated, amateurish nature is simply too awful for Raine and
his musicians to possibly save, and one has to winder if it was included
on the compilation simply to elevate the stature of Barry's work for the
franchise. In the end, however, this is a better compilation than the
first installment, with great, newly-recorded tracks from
Moonraker and
A View to a Kill combined with strong
performances of
Octopussy and
The Man with the Golden Gun
making this an impressive product well worth your money.
**** Amazon.com Price Hunt: CD or Download
The insert contains extensive notes about each of the films and scores, as well as
thorough credits and production information. The track titles on the gold exterior of the
packaging are in a font (and in all capitals) that is difficult to read.
