LAST TIME I covered the wide variety of music heard in the original The Twilight Zone series, including Goldsmith’s music from the first two seasons.
THIS TIME I’m covering two unrelated works.
First up: Islands in the Stream. I was already familiar with the later recording Goldsmith did for Intrada after his Lionheart sessions. This year I finally picked up the film recording from FSM. Both are still in print on CD (Intrada has reissued this a few times; while the FSM one is amazingly still available after a decade) and also are on Spotify.
Honestly, I can’t figure out why Goldsmith felt his new recording was corrective. Maybe it’s something in the horn solos? The instrumental balance? I’ve done a few comparisons and it’s very hard to tell. In fact, I think the instrumental clarity is a little better on the original. Plus, the later orchestra didn’t even have the chops to perform the first half of ‘Eddy’s Death’, a nice bit of tense Goldsmith 70s action material that was a welcome “What’s THIS?” surprise during my first spin of the album.
I know some folks find most of this work a bit too understated/sedate, and there is something slightly unresolved about its themes. But I still find it to be one of Goldsmith’s stronger drama scores with some rather affecting moments, and its few moments of outright adventure are thrillingly energetic.
****½ (adding a half star)
Next: The Last Castle, my 122nd Goldsmith score. This one I had never heard a note of before Intrada’s recent expansion.
I can understand why this was generally received with shrugs when it came out. The structure of the main theme closely follows the template Goldsmith set up in past military films (not to mention the use of solo trumpet as a nod to masculinity), and the electronic pulses carry over from his 90s action/thriller works. As such, it’s a score that is rarely poor (with the repeated motif for the prison/antagonist perhaps being a bit of a letdown) but is also rather workmanlike.
Still, there are some notable highs. The main theme is memorable, and its use in the final track is appropriately mournful and superbly performed by Malcolm McNab. The massive Copland-esque brass fanfare in ‘The Rock Pile’ is an early highlight. The climactic stretch, with all that ascending brass and stomping percussion, is good fun, if a tad predictable. As late-period Goldsmith military thrillers go, it’s a step above U.S. Marshals but a step behind The Sum of All Fears.
***½, with the final half star secured by ‘Battle for the Castle’. Much of that track was penned by Mark McKenzie, who was in the middle of his stretch as an orchestrator of Goldsmith's final scores as well as many Elfman and Silvestri scores in the late 90s and early aughts. In addition to doing some bang-up interpretations of Goldsmith’s ideas (including the aforementioned fanfare), McKenzie channels varied action rhythms that come off the halfway point between Air Force One and Goldsmith’s rejected Timeline, and also throws in a few choice anvil hits for good measure. I imagine it’s by far the best reason to pick up the expanded release if you already have the original.
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