Revell's mixture of exotic tones for the supernatural atmosphere, metal and industrial elements for the violence and setting, and orchestral harmony for the love story form an intriguingly effective sound to represent the heart of The Crow. The rock songs, meanwhile, represented on their own compilation, speak to the straight kick-ass action and revenge aspects. He ultimately did not completely abandon the idea of using a prominent electric guitar in the score, and the source-like usage for the on-screen performances, although short, will steal the show for some listeners. The assignment was compelling for Revell in part because the love theme took on additional meaning given Lee's death, and his efforts yielded him several jobs writing music for comic adaptations to films in the subsequent ten years. Because of the score's frequent usage in trailers, Revell once commented, "In retrospect, I think The Crow was pretty seminal," and he would extend its basic atmosphere to The Crow: City of Angels. The audience of the score for the first film is likely to pull much harder at the heart strings of devotees of the concept rather than the usual film score collectors. While the score's love theme performances are easy on the ears and intriguing in texture, the middle portions of the work, those that emphasize the heavy industrial elements, will likely eliminate much of the interest from strictly orchestral score enthusiasts. But that doesn't mean that The Crow will be frightfully insufferable during its entirety for that crowd, either. Roughly half an hour of the love theme and hypnotic ethnic performances occupy the opening and closing cues of the film and original score album; these passages are engaging despite maintaining a chill for much of their length. Simmering rhythms propelled by unusual percussion, droning keyboarding, and chanting voices are accompanied by shakuhachi flute, Armenian duduk, and muted trumpet fragments of melody for many of the more significant moments of reflection in The Crow. Some might consider the trumpet to have a noir-like jazzy influence. The swells of orchestral accompaniment for the primary character's mourning scenes, guided mostly by piano and a 50-member string section, are satisfyingly redemptive at the end of "Birth of the Legend," "Rain Forever," and "Return to the Grave." In other highlights, the instrumental soloists give this theme two minutes of sorrow in "Remembrance" and female vocal accents provide eerily contemporary tones in "Last Rites."

Outside of the relatively romantic, readily accessible portions of the score for The Crow, the remainder of Revell's work consists of either pounding or grating industrial tones of no particular direction or source-oriented pieces. The latter will be of the most interest to fans of the film. The openings of both "Captive Child" and "Inferno" contain the love theme performed with distorted and obviously painful emotion by solo guitar. (Lee was not actually performing these scenes himself in the film, as he had died by that point in the production). Additionally, the start of "Tracking the Prey" contains a source segment of the rather mundane rock song, itself derived from the love theme, performed by Lee's fictional band, "Hangman's Joke," in the film. Together, all of these parts of the score for The Crow offer a souvenir from the film as effective as the song compilation, though be prepared for largely textural and atmospheric music in its majority. Because of the sonic colors employed by Revell for The Crow, however, the work remains an interesting listening experience that could be edited into suites to separate the reflective and violent passages. This recommendation especially applies to Varèse Sarabande's 2021 expanded and limited 2-CD set for the score. While the label's 49-minute product of 1994 was sufficient for casual appreciation, the 2021 version offers 96 minutes of score and the end credits rock song co-written by Revell and containing some of the DNA of the score. On the surface, a hundred minutes of music from The Crow is a drab, challenging journey, and much of the additional material extends the grating industrial suspense and killing material. But there are half a dozen fairly significant cues of percussively impassioned action and the love theme that debut on this product and should be included on any suite of highlights, including the smart interplay between vocal and instrumental colors of "Despair," the extended romance of "Inertia," "Pain and the Shadows" and "A Cold October Night," the nicely lyrical but atmospheric "Innocent Lovers," and the substantial percussion and vocal finale of length, "Angel From Hell." These cues are required listening for enthusiasts of the score, and the remastering of Revell's wet vocals and exotic instruments is appropriately mystical. Even in the longer presentation, the most problematic aspect of the score is that its subdued nature doesn't allow for it to do what most superhero scores accomplish: tell a story on its own. Still, The Crow was never meant to be such an endeavor, and despite its dispiriting persona, you have to give Revell credit for absolutely nailing this assignment.  ****   @Amazon.com: CD or Download