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Review of Bond: Back in Action (Compilation)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... if you seek freshly re-recorded suites of orchestral
underscore from each of the first seven James Bond scores.
Avoid it... if your interest in the music from the Bond franchise is rooted primarily in the title songs and their themes, available from the same label on another product.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
Bond: Back in Action: (Compilation) If record
producers have learned one important lesson through the years about
selling soundtrack collections to mainstream moviegoers, it would be
that a little James Bond material can't hurt. After previously releasing
an album that spans the themes of all the Bond films from Dr. No
to Goldeneye, the Silva Screen label went back to the City of
Prague Philharmonic to record fuller suites from the first seven Bond
films for inclusion on this 1999 album. Spanning the string of Sean
Connery films as well as the one George Lazenby experiment, this
compilation starts with the origins of Bond in Dr. No and wraps
up with Diamonds are Forever. With much of the original sheet
music for the actual scores (not the themes) missing and deemed lost,
Nic Raine, who not only conducts the City of Prague Philharmonic, but is
also a long time collaborator with John Barry, reconstructed and
orchestrated each suite individually. Raine's qualifications in this
endeavor are not questioned; he orchestrated the original scores for
A View to a Kill and The Living Daylights, and arranged
superior performances of Barry's work for Silva's complete recording of
Raise the Titanic and suites of various Barry scores released on
the "Zulu" compilation from approximately the same time as this Bond
set. Instead of simply regurgitating the stale theme arrangements that
fans have heard countless times, Raine and producer James Fitzpatrick
decided to take a different approach with "Back in Action." The original
intention behind the album was to release strictly new material that
they had not recorded and released previously (and, for the most part,
had not been available anywhere on album as the late 90's). These cues,
however, often did not give a very good representation of the themes
from their scores, so in the end, some of the more thematically
recognizable material needed to be combined with the newly recorded cues
in order to make the product attractive on the shelves.
One of the album's selling points is the performance by Vic Flick on the title Bond theme; Flick was, of course, the original guitarist for the theme in 1962. Ironically, this first track on the album is also the weakest. This isn't the fault of Flick, but rather the intentionally sparse orchestrations meant to better represent the smaller ensemble that originally presented the theme for Dr. No. As such, the ensemble sounds deceivingly lackluster during just this one performance when compared to what follows. Purists likely won't mind, though some will have preferred to have heard the full orchestra cut loose and insert the necessary blast of power the theme benefits from in other recent re-recordings. The following suites of material from each of the first seven scores are all enjoyable. The Dr. No suite by Monty Norman includes the famous "Death of the Tarantula" track that any franchise fan will recognize instantly; it's performed with the vigor of every shoe strike. Seamlessly, the material shifts to the work of John Barry for the rest of the album (and feel free to insert a joke about the lawsuit between Norman and Barry here). A lengthy group of tracks from From Russia with Love is bracketed by the main theme and Barry's secondary chase cue (with staggered brass and continuous percussion) that would prove to be a staple of many of his Bond scores. The Goldfinger suite captures both sides of the swinging score, with both the lounge-worthy Miami theme and the bold, militaristic version of the title theme displayed during the Fort Knox sequence. The mass of music from Thunderball relates to the motif that Barry set up in From Russia with Love, with another lengthy portion of it served throughout the suite. With their exotic and melodic beauty, the two tracks from You Only Live Twice offer a great representation of music from the film and are arguably the highlights of this album. Included in the suite is everything from the original theme to the wedding cue, the battle sequence in the crater lake, and the eerie space cue. The selections from On Her Majesty's Secret Service and Diamonds are Forever are generally on the more light-hearted side. For On Her Majesty's Secret Service (easily the more superior of the two), Prague records a significant amount of material available on this album for the first time. The orchestration on this suite is of interest; the melancholy woodwind theme in "Who Will Buy My Yesterdays" is treated to the appropriately creepy rattling the background, while the "Ski Chase" sequence makes use of the overbearing electric bass in the exciting action sub-theme for the film. Far weaker are the cues from Diamonds are Forever, though the instrumental performance of the theme from the film is an excellent track with which to finish the album. The performances on the whole are commendable and the sound quality is crystal clear. While the ensemble had crucified some of these themes in their early film music recordings from seven or eight years prior, these new performances are freshly recorded and the players, as any group will tend to do, got better with time. Nic Raine, as usual, does a fantastic job of capturing the style of Barry's original recordings. The separation of most of the films' themes on one CD (released previously by Silva Screen) and the score suites available here presents a problem, however. The die-hard Bond score collectors will very much enjoy the "Bond: Back in Action" compilation, though the product still doesn't serve as the comprehensive compilation of Bond score re-recordings that would result if the products were combined. It was the promise of the album's producers at the time that if this product were successful enough in sales (and it was released at the same time as the debut of David Arnold's The World is Not Enough for that purpose), a follow-up with recordings from the Roger Moore era of films would follow. It indeed happened, and the sequel album would be a more well-rounded and interesting product, partially because of the possible over-exposure of the earlier Barry scores. Overall, both are still entertaining albums. ***
TRACK LISTINGS:
Total Time: 74:14
* Previously unrecorded
NOTES & QUOTES:
The insert contains extensive notes about each of the tracks, as well as thorough credits.
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1999-2024, Filmtracks Publications. All rights reserved.
The reviews and other textual content contained on the filmtracks.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Christian Clemmensen at Filmtracks Publications. All artwork and sound clips from Bond: Back in Action are Copyright © 1999, Silva Screen Records and cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 10/27/99 and last updated 10/18/07. |
