Buy it... if you'd be enticed by a merging of Media Ventures synthetic bass and drum pads with Jerry Goldsmith's ambitious rhythms and Bruce Broughton's brass layers.

Avoid it... if you prefer your Christopher Young music to be unpredictable and laced with the more challenging dissonance that defines his horror scores.

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Hard Rain: (Christopher Young) While Hollywood was already being flooded with failed blockbusters about natural disasters in 1997 and 1998, Paramount attempted to throw a different angle at audiences by combining the disaster of a flood in small town America with an organized robbery. Neither changing the title of the film from The Flood to Hard Rain nor delaying its release for nearly an entire year led to success for the studio, however. Hard Rain was drowned by non-existent character development, terrible acting, predictable and boring action shootouts, and a lack of genuine danger presented by the flood itself. Cinematographer Mikael Salomon directed Hard Rain to a conclusion so improbable that audiences were only relieved to be done with the entire experience, and the film was a monumental failure at the box office. The nonstop action had a direct influence over the score for the film, and the unyielding pace of that action would require some serious sophistication in the score to help float its mindless characteristics. Also at play is the location of Indiana, and both the needs of the action and locale are addressed be veteran horror film composer Christopher Young. At the time, fans of the composer were excited about Hard Rain because it presented Young with his first mainstream action score. Unfortunately, the opportunity would go to waste so badly due to the film's disastrous showing that fans and writers would say the same thing about Young the following year regarding his assignment for Entrapment. Despite writing some interesting material for these interludes into the straight action genre, Young never seemed to get a good foothold into it, and as the 2000's would roll along, Young's more notable scores would once again be based in the horror genre.

His work for Hard Rain is exactly what the film needed at the very least, and Young makes it clear through his approach to the music that he never had any intent of adding another dimension to any of the individual, poorly rendered characters. Instead, his score is almost entirely heartless action, with the exception perhaps of the enticing harmonica solos by the legendary Jean 'Toots' Thielemans. The performance by both Thielemans and The London Metropolitan Orchestra are key to Young's score, for they take an average piece of writing and, along with an outstanding recording job, give the score an element of overachievement. The sound of Hard Rain is a combination of Media Ventures synthetic bass and drum pads with Jerry Goldsmith's ambitious rhythmic tendencies and Bruce Broughton's usually awesome employment of brass layers. It really is a "Goldsmith and Broughton meets Hans Zimmer" kind of score, and the resulting combination is so well managed in parts that Hard Rain is easy to recommend to action fans. The opening titles are the highlight of the score, breaking the silence with brass blasts very similar to Silverado's thematic opening. Young's majestic chord alternations of evil intent strike the minor key with occasional major key inclusions for an almost mystical effect while his Hellraiser-style timpani form a pounding chord underneath. The suspense is then broken by a well-mixed electronic pulsation under a decent brass theme and tingling treble electronics a la Goldsmith. The harmonica eventually adds significant style to the cue, begging for more such performances that would sadly be sparse in the remainder of the score.

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From there, the score is perpetual action, never allowing a single cue to pass without a slamming of the drum pads and brass. It's more standard action than you're used to hearing from Young, devoid of the challenges that his horror scores throw at you. A few of these cues are very satisfying in their harmonic progressions, including the first "Jet Ski Chase" cue and both "Church Chase" ones. Pieces of Copycat appear in how Young uses swirling strings to represent the encroaching water in Hard Rain. One very vibrant aspect of the score is Young's employment of the percussion section, especially in the metallic realm. Chimes and cymbals provide outstanding accents to the action, as do both the electronics and flutes in the higher regions. The problem with Hard Rain is, expectedly, the fact that it is, despite its strengths, a truly one-dimensional score. You never arrive at any sense of resolution at the conclusion, nor does the action material evolve in any way from start to end (the final score track, "Over the Rooftop" is a pedestrian entry compared to the rest of the score). The harmonica's role is largely diminished from its potential established at the start, and Young's music is almost stale by its closing bars. If more improvisational style by Thielemans, as in "Jim Saves the Day," had been presented, this score could have been brilliant. Without it, the "coolness" factor evident in the opening cue, a must-have for any compilation, is lost thereafter. A throw-away rock song at the end doesn't help the album wrap up Young's material. Overall, the score has very impressive moments, as well as ten or so minutes of potent, dynamic action writing, but it remains too anonymous by the end to keep you coming back. The recording's simply outstanding vibrance makes it a recommended album for Young enthusiasts. ****   Amazon.com Price Hunt: CD or Download

Bias Check:

For Christopher Young reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.3 (in 23 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 2.99 (in 7,951 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.