Williams responded by composing a remarkable score for The Fury with elements from his own thematic tendencies and motifs that are clearly direct tributes to, if not extensions of, Herrmann's body of work. Some film music historians argue that the period of 1977 to 1982 represented the best years of Williams' career, a time when the composer was at his highest level of motivation and talent. Indeed, The Fury reinforces that point of view, proving to be very effective and riveting both in the film and decades later on album. Nothing was spared in the scope of the score for The Fury. Williams' music is guided by a horrifying title theme, heavy on brass and very weighty in its brutal structural repetitions during the supernatural acts in the film. The waltz format of this theme, best heard in "Main Title" and "Gillian's Vision," is driven by both its elegantly swaying progressions on floating woodwinds and emphasized pounding of the theme's key by bass elements in a fashion that would gain more recognition in E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial. The three or four full, rolling outbursts of this theme in the score represent some of the composer's most engaging material of the era, foreshadowing the harrowing tone of A.I. Artificial Intelligence. The lighter performances of this idea, as well as secondary themes, highlight tender moments between main characters, but even this material never entirely escapes the tense brass undertones. The main character idea, heard in full in the lovely "For Gillian," is a flighty and delightful combination of Williams' 1970's mannerisms and mysterious fantasy tones that would later inform his Harry Potter scores significantly, another ode by the composer to youthful innocence just waiting to be shattered by the paranormal. For fans of those moments when Williams unleashes ungodly noise and ruckus, however, The Fury offers over twenty combined minutes of horror music that will shake your room and cause your neighbors to call the police. Unlike Herrmann's often shrieking horror cues (when sustained), Williams refuses to approach the same level of challenging dissonance for long periods in the work. His emphasis on strong melodrama of character heart and personal struggle cause even the most horrifying cues in The Fury to have a bittersweet beauty to them. In these regards, his tribute to Herrmann's cascading woodwinds (and even an octave-alternating theremin in the explosive climax) becomes almost an improvement upon Herrmann's legacy.

Most importantly, Williams extends these classic Herrmann sounds into a brutal, menacing realm that actually makes it more accessible for modern listeners in The Fury. The "Gillian's Power" cue, with that memorable theremin employment (which is among the few elements of the ensemble to really stand out in that noisy scene in the film), is the culmination of all the Herrmann techniques employed in the score. But after Cassavetes has exploded and DePalma dwells on the final shot of his head bouncing off the floor, Williams shifts into accelerating, bass region ensemble strikes that are not only pure Williams in style, but would eventually evolve further during a climactic moment of Jurassic Park. It's arguably the most powerful moment of the entire score, and it's interestingly one true to Williams' own style. So influential a score had Williams created that bits of ideas in The Fury would turn up over the next twenty years in other supernatural or sci-fi thrillers. The title theme, in its ominously fluttering and steady eloquence, is a clear predecessor for Williams' own wondrous Hogwarts castle theme for his three Harry Potter scores. The quick, consecutive brass blasts in the bass region, meant to emphasize the beginning of a measure of music with the most powerful note possible, would show up again extensively in James Horner's Brainstorm and Christopher Young's Hellraiser II. Wavering, tense, and harsh brass tones, slowly alternating between two octaves of quivering notes, would serve as a foundation for Don Davis' elusive theme for The Matrix. Williams' insertion of carnival music, synthesizers for added mystery, the theremin, and the abnormally strong use of bassoons are all elements that were used in similar ways by other composers for years to come, including Jerry Goldsmith, who Williams even (likely unintentionally) emulates in brief flashes in this score. There are weaknesses in the music for The Fury, the openly carnival version of the "Death on the Carousel" cue among the most obvious; the re-worked recording of the cue that resulted from post-production tinkering is a painful and unnecessary revision to a scene that Williams had jokingly referred to as "Flying Arabs" in his cue sheets. On top of that, some listeners may be overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of Herrmann references and/or the music's tendency to emphasize over-wrought melodramatic agony rather than purely ballsy horror. The need to address the teenage romance element of the story does limit the horror material's frequency, but its punch is unquestioned when it is allowed to flourish.

On album, The Fury has existed in several forms. Williams re-recorded the score with the London Symphony Orchestra for the contemporary LP album (eventually copied onto a 1990 CD) in the same sessions with Superman, and this recording remains superior in his altered arrangements and sonic depth to the actual, film version recorded in Los Angeles. The original score as heard in context was first released in 2002 as part of the limited Varèse Sarabande Club, with only 3,000 copies available. That limited album, however, also included an incredible remastering of the LSO recording as well, making for a fantastic set. The London remastering featured with this popular Varèse product indeed sounds spectacular, with all the vibrant clarity of a digital recording of the 2000's. The original score includes some more precise performances in certain parts, and is an equally interesting experience, especially with the proper addition of the theremin for devious flavor. After the 2002 product sold out within a few years, demand continued for this powerful Williams work, and La-La Land Records returned it to circulation in 2013 with a 3,500-copy edition that once again remastered the sound quality using newer technology and this time added several source recordings and small snippets of score material that had been excluded from the prior limited release. The difference in the quality of the sound on the 2013 album isn't as noticeable as the improvement that was obvious when transitioning from the 1990 to 2002 CDs, though the London version still remains significantly superior to the Los Angeles original. The additional music available on the 2013 set is mostly a continuing reminder of why music from the 1970's is derided so thoroughly in retrospect. These pop-influenced song and score cues are seemingly intentionally recorded and mixed with background placement in mind, their tone ambient and presence a bit wetter and removed compared to the main score. The short "Bed Scene" orchestral bonus contains an ominous fragment of the main theme. Otherwise, the newly included music on the 2013 may be rather uninteresting to the causal listener, and with the sound quality not radically improved over the 2002 product, the La-La Land set's primary purpose, and a noble one at that, is to make this entertaining score available and affordable another time. Overall, no dedicated Williams or Herrmann collector should be without this demonic score, the two limited albums well worth their price for especially the London re-recording of the score's highlights. Then all you'd need is a creepy mannequin, a few dozen gallons of fake blood, a stick of dynamite, and forgiving neighbors.   @Amazon.com: CD or Download