This is certainly a 4/5 score, probably higher. I guess, you just have to disconnect yourself from Howard Shore's work to fully grasp it. However, due to the long-standing possibility that Shore is in some way involved in this score, which in fact was true, the expectations where pretty much that this is going to be some kind of musical continuity of the LotR score.

> It's going to take longer to have a better understanding of the score (and
> ultimately I'll just have to watch the show), but after two full listens
> I'm fairly confident it's the kind of paradigm-shifting entrant into the
> score conversation that relegates my previous contenders for score of the
> year to second-tier status. It is arguably the only reason I'm interested
> in the show - and that's not to say I'm as adamantly against the show,
> more just that the advertising hasn't really done it for me (though
> neither did the same streamer's Wheel of Time trailers and that
> show turned out alright).

> Let's not screw around. It is transparently a McCreary score. I quipped
> earlier God of War is what got him the job, and that's doubly true
> now. You could also joke that it’s Masters of the Universe:
> Revelation without the rock elements and 10 times the budget (and
> indeed it has a booming concert hall ambience at times, not something I
> can say about many of his works).

> But that would ignore both the connections it has with his other works (in
> parts it’s Da Vinci’s Demons on steroids, others hit
> Godzilla volumes, and there are assumed scene/episode-ending brass
> flourishes that have been a hallmark of his since Agents of
> S.H.I.E.L.D.), as well as how saturated large stretches of it are with
> the harmonic language and instrumental soundscapes Shore used 20 years
> ago.

> McCreary claimed all 15 major themes have an A theme, a B theme, and some
> kind of underlying rhythm. He appears to not have exaggerated. It’s an
> astonishing level of complexity, and it’s not all going to be immediately
> transparent the first or second go-round. I only recently started noticing
> that the theme which seems to alternate with Numenor and Galadriel themes
> later in the album was actually the Halbrand theme introduced in an
> earlier suite, but now at majestic volumes instead of its folksy origins.
> And there are definitely commonalities amongst the themes (in a Rózsa
> King of Kings way) - Elrond’s B theme and Galadriel’s A theme share
> some phrasings, for example.

> I’ve now told myself multiple times (and my wife at least once) that the
> show can’t be terrible if the music is this good. It's at least gotta be
> better than Halo, right?

> Second listen theme reactions
> - The theme suite Galadriel I haven’t been able to get enough of
> since its release weeks ago. Those interval jumps, the whole sense of epic
> tragedy, and especially that resonant string countermelody in the back
> half. There’s even a small sense of Joe Hisaishi here, probably just a
> coincidence. And that underlying rhythm hints at Shore’s elven ideas ever
> so slightly.

> - Numenor feels like the Middle Eastern parts of Da Vinci’s
> Demons (or really anything Bear's used the yayli tambur on) realized
> at Godzilla volumes. Exoticism at a gargantuan scale. Its use in
> the full score, along with Galadriel's theme, make for several of my
> favorite pieces - the end of White Leaves, all of Sailing into
> the Dawn

> - Khazad-Dum is thunderous, and the choir harmonies in the
> background seem to match some of the secundal stuff Shore was doing for
> the dwarves.

> - All the Harfoot-related material for the Hobbit ancestors seems the
> halfway point between Bear's Outlander and Shore’s pseudo-Celtic
> sounds for the Shire, and when the Nori theme gets taken up by the string
> ensemble there’s almost a sense of 90s Thomas Newman. Its outburst at the
> end of Nobody Goes Off Trail is a treat

> - The Stranger is catnip for those who’ve loved McCreary’s use of
> mallet percussion since SOCOM 4. The ambiguous melodic structure
> recalls Caprica, while the vibrant harmonies at larger scales
> suggest Cloverfield Paradox. Based on the structure of the album it
> seems this theme / character becomes more important later in the season.

> - The Valinor idea feels like a close cousin of the more angelic
> material Shore wrote (thinking how Shore's Desolation of Smaug
> credits piece Beyond the Forest opened).

> - Likely coincidence: the Elrond theme has some occasional
> similarities with the melodic contours of Flying Dreams from
> Secret of NIMH

> There are things that were abundant in Shore’s work that aren't here,
> namely complex dissonances and certain specialty instruments. One could
> lament that there aren’t more explicit thematic linkages (or even
> structural linkages, as there's seemingly an absence of anything in 5/4
> time), though aside from the impossibility of getting Shore to write the
> score in full (the hour-plus of theme ideas plus something like 7-8 hours
> of episodic music) there’s also the consideration that Shore only really
> wrote Third and Fourth Age themes and wasn't addressing the Second Age so
> that's essentially fair game. Bear wrote something in his own style that's
> a distant cousin of Shore's music at worst, and that at least deserves a
> tip of the hat.

> I can't see this being any worse than a high-end 4.5-star work in my book,
> and that's me being overly conservative. Too many 'holy shit!' moments to
> ignore.