Filmtracks Recommends:
Buy it... if you're an enthusiast of John Barry's complete scores for the Roger Moore and Timothy Dalton era of James Bond music. Avoid it... if you expect to hear the standard performances of the title themes for each score on the compilation, for the purpose of this re-recorded presentation is to highlight the action and conversational underscore of each work. Filmtracks Editorial Review:
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. **** Track Listings:
Total Time: 65:34
* previously unreleased material All artwork and sound clips from Bond: Back in Action 2 are Copyright © 2000, Silva Screen. The reviews and notes contained on the filmtracks.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Filmtracks Publications. Audio clips can be heard using RealPlayer but cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 10/23/00, updated 7/30/08. Review Version 4.1 - PHP (Filmtracks Publications). Copyright © 2000-2013, Christian Clemmensen. All rights reserved. |
