Buy it... if you regularly appreciate the subtleties of Howard Shore's more ambient dramatic works.

Avoid it... if you expect the shades of classicism in The Yards to have the same appeal as Eastern Promises on album.

Shore

The Yards: (Howard Shore) Five years after his debut with Little Odessa, director James Gray's second feature film is reportedly based on the life story of his father. After taking the fall for a friend and doing 16 months in prison for grand theft auto, Mark Wahlberg's lead is drawn into the underworld of organized crime by that same friend, a honor that brings him respect but also danger. In the industry of New York subway cars, this young man not only learns the trade of repair, but is also sucked into the practice of sabotaging competitors' cars. During his first mission, another man is killed, and thus the chase and betrayal ensue. The film only received muted praise, partly due to script problems that defied the supposedly true nature of the tale. For The Yards, Gray upgraded his music to include the work of Howard Shore, who, in his pre-The Lord of the Rings days, was largely known for darkly dramatic works such as this, Silence of the Lambs, The Game, and others. He had established himself as capable of capturing the brooding, yet elegant aspect of morbid, heart-wrenching topics and had therefore gained himself a sort of cult status among some film score fans. Gray called upon Shore to combine his usual knack for accentuating these sinister dramas with a classical twist. The director believed heavily in the impact that music could have on every part of his filmmaking process, so he played selections of a specific classical genre to help stimulate the needed mood on the set while filming. It's not the first time a director has done this, even without the eventual use of the source music in the finished film. Still, he wanted his drama to be inspired by early 20th Century orchestral pieces by Holst, Ravel, and Puccini, so after using that music on the set, he asked Shore to continue that inspiration in his score. Shore succeeds in that task, to an extent. A certain classical touch from 100 years past is conveyed; as a matter of fact, Shore went ahead and worked the "Saturn, Bringer of Old Age" sequence from Gustav Holst's "The Planets" right into his original work.

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Among the composer's better known works after his Oscar wins, Eastern Promises is the score that The Yards truly foreshadows, though any listener hoping to hear the same outward elegance will be dissatisfied. He constructs a simple, yet effective neo-classical environment with chord progressions true to his inspiration, establishing his pretty, though subdued title theme in "Queensborough Hall" and working its variants into several subsequent cues. The timid clarinet solos in this cue really offer the only sense of hope and goodness in a score that is otherwise very bleak in its restrained orchestral accompaniment. Much of the work broods at minimalistic levels not much unlike many of Shore's other scores for this type of film, though he does offer several compelling sub-themes for the story's other main characters. Of the most interest is the heightened emotion of "Willy." The majority of the score, like Eastern Promises in many ways, becomes tediously repetitive after about half of its running time on album. That does not detract from the very low-key elegance to be heard in nearly every cue, but be prepared for the score to lull you to sleep rather than inspire you to action with its beauty. A close examination of the score is really necessary for true appreciation, and you'll discover hints at nobility in several places, especially those that make reference to the style of the Holst piece performed in "Blackout." Shore, in a very subtle manner, calls upon the brass to perform some of his chord progressions with a distinctly sharp edge, replacing the need for more outward tension. These moments present the highlights of the album, including the striking crescendo heard at the conclusion of "Internal Investigation" (which ends the album on a dramatic note). In its function, the score works because of the application of the London Philharmonic Orchestra in the lowest ranges of its instruments' capabilities. As such, the score certainly achieves its goal of pushing the power behind the drama. On album, however, The Yards suffers much like many other earlier Shore albums. It requires very close attention to fully appreciate its best elements, including a very slight operatic vocal that whispers into a few of the tracks. Otherwise, the score might slip by very quickly and without much notice. ***   Amazon.com Price Hunt: CD or Download

Bias Check:

For Howard Shore reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.43 (in 23 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.25 (in 93,154 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.