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•	1991 Album

•	2014 Album

•	1991 Album

The scope of Doyle's composition and recording for Dead Again is massive, with its attitude outrageously extroverted much of the time. This is a score that wears its emotions right on its sleeve and dispenses with subtlety when most impactful on screen. There is keen development in softer shades during the suspense and conversational scenes, but even here Doyle tends to play a heavy hand in the emotional tenor. The outright chasing and murder scenes are arguably overplayed, as are some of the romantic interludes of Golden Age influence in the middle and ends of the film. The shock techniques are applied so loudly and with such shrill enthusiasm from the full ensemble that the score can overwhelm. Doyle's orchestral mastery was already in top form, though some of the over-emphasis on certain lines may have been infused at the orchestration and conducting level. It's certainly a dynamic score overflowing with personality, but expect its rather dry recording quality to sometimes strike you like a wall of sound. (Jerry Goldsmith or Christopher Young likely would have approached the mix with a wetter ambience for the fantasy elements.) Low brass in particular is extraordinarily powerful. The composer's handling of thematic constructs is brilliant for a relative novice, the manipulation of the ideas superbly executed. On the other hand, the themes are not memorable whatsoever, making their narrative connections less potent. Because the melodies aren't readily accessible, Doyle misses the opportunity to truly embrace the connections between the characters in ways average audience members could recognize. Still, he provides three main identities to the picture, and two of them, those for murder and love, dominate the score's more obvious passages. The third theme representing lost identity (and Emma Thompson's contemporary character, Grace) wafts through as a technical element as well. The murder theme is where Doyle really unleashes hell on this soundtrack, combining it with a chasing motif to create a sense of panic that is certainly thrilling even if it is overbearing and even cartoonishly bloated at times. This idea's stuttering, ascending figures of mystery build momentum in phases throughout "The Headlines" and transition into the score's alternative chasing action version during most of "A Walk Down Death Row."

The malleable murder theme in Dead Again experiences deceptive incarnations throughout the score, informing the periphery of the nightmarish moment in "The Door Knob" and previewed in light shades during "Mike Meets Grace." But Doyle can't resist letting the idea explode, as it does when it strikes in its action form in "Mike Says Goodnight." The theme then takes ominously curious tones in the middle of "The Magazine," stews in its ascending figures during "Roman's Mask," and tickles in fragments during "Inga and the Coat." It blurts in fragments of powerful brass in "Margaret Sees Mike," gains urgency half a minute into "The Wallet/Do Her, Man!" and thereafter, and returns to its subtle mode late in "The Laughing Duke." In the climax of the film, the murder theme builds throughout "Hightower House" until it is fully pronounced near the end. Frantic on brass during "Death of a Mad Son," Doyle takes the theme wildly apocalyptic, leading into choral chanting at the cue's height. In the end credits, the identity follows the love theme at 1:14 into "Dead Again" for a reprise of "The Headlines." That theme of romance is a somewhat fluid but troubled descending idea with just enough romantic appeal to suffice, yearning for Golden Age appeal in its broadest moments. It interjects at 0:55 into "The Headlines," struggles against the doom of "Final Request," and offers a quick foreshadowing as it guides the start of "A Walk Down Death Row." The idea is melded into the panic of the murder theme in "Mike Says Goodnight," hinted late in "You Missed Something," and restrained but joyous in "Winter 1948." The role for the theme starts to flourish after a frantic moment in the piano strikes near the start of "Grace Hears the Music," later warming up in "I'm Scared, Mike/So What's My Name?" An even fuller version of "So What's My Name?" is featured on the longer 2014 album for the score, and that product also includes a solo piano sketch of this cue from Doyle. The love theme expresses some warmth in "It Never Rains in LA," leading to a nicely lush performance. It's fancifully whimsical on light strings and winds in "I'm Not Roman," and a more precisely prickly version is explored as an alternate on the longer album. The theme is somber on cello in "It All Went to Hell" but becomes massively melodramatic at the outset and at 1:18 into "Fate Happens." It enjoys some relief on strings only in "The Door is Closed," where it segues into a beautiful rendition, and it notably interrupts the identity/Grace theme with verbosity at 0:40 into "Dead Again."

Before listeners get to the love theme in Dead Again, though, they have been confronted with that less spectacular identity theme that doubles for Grace. This theme is vaguely undefined, with an unresolved ending befitting its role in the story. Introduced in the middle of "The Headlines" directly against the murder theme, this idea formally opens "Mike Meets Grace" on winds and strings. It meanders aimlessly in "First Hypnosis/You Missed Something," is barely conveyed on high strings early in "The Woman With No Name," and blends into the love theme by "So What's My Name?" The identity theme then previews the love theme in its romantic tones at the start of "It Never Rains in LA," mingles wildly with the murder theme in "Hightower House," and shifts in its progressions so that it finally resolves at the start of "Dead Again." A secondary theme for the Inga character addresses the truth behind the story, expressed on oboe in a structure that is a keen variation of the ascending figures of the murder theme. Defined by this instrument in "Two Halves of the Same Person" and "Wait a Minute," Doyle adapts it a few times elsewhere in the score, most notably in more romantic treatment in its sad reflection during "Inga's Secrets." It also figures briefly in the early panic of "Hightower House." Overall, Doyle's zealous approach to Dead Again has always been admirable, but the score tends to get in its own way at times. The themes aren't memorable enough to function as intended, but their orchestral execution is a pleasure to behold. The score is the kind of spectacle that you always want to revisit in hopes that its narrative will better click upon the next listen, but it never quite does. The original 1991 album of 32 minutes from Varèse Sarabande focuses on the opening and closing cues while a 2014 expansion from La-La Land Records provides the better-rounded interior of the score that really illuminates the identity/Grace theme to a greater degree. A different mix seems to be employed on the 2014 album, and this distinction is noticeable on the alternate "The Headlines" track especially. That longer product also offers a handful of alternate cues and various source pieces heard in the movie. The 78-minute presentation helps the narrative flow of the score and is recommended, but it doesn't absolve the work of its continued tendency to overplay its emotional position, hitting you with overwrought moments of grandeur that are too monumentally rendered to serve their scenes well. There is much to like in this score, but Doyle learned later in his career how to better modulate the touch of his music.  ***   @Amazon.com: CD or Download

Bias Check:

For Patrick Doyle reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.79 (in 34 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.44 (in 26,545 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.