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The parts of Punch-Drunk Love that follow a song-like musical format make sense, and the four or five songs in the film and on album do set a very distinct, whimsical atmosphere for the film. But Brion's original song, "Here We Go," as well as his underscore, is extremely confusing and, at times, unbearable to attempt to comprehend in terms of musical structure. If scores are graded on how much sense they make, then Punch-Drunk Love flunks the task outright. But given that love often doesn't make sense either, perhaps the composer's point is well made. The aforementioned original song is a shameless Beatles imitation, almost to such a level that it becomes fascinating, but it is the score that will raise eyebrows. To follow the convoluted tale, Brion writes a piece of music that borrows from nearly every genre of film music. A few cues stay true to that vintage Hawaiian style. Others raise the Mediterranean spirit of love with a small Italian ensemble, while even other expressions of love use a traditional orchestra of a small size to attempt a romance theme straight from the Golden Age of Hollywood. A stock horror cue is followed a few minutes later by an attempt to capture Bernard Herrmann's choppy strings at a moment of heated emotions. But the truly bizarre nature of Punch-Drunk Love is put on display in three of its first four cues, when orchestral and electronic elements are mutilated both badly and on purpose. Sound effects and musical samples are mixed at unnatural rates, including the sounds of waves and seagulls distorted to ridiculous speeds in "Tabla," with the quality of the sounds sometimes degenerating into random voices and the banging of garbage can lids. Making the situation worse is the intentional reduction of sound quality to varying levels in each cue (in an attempt, possibly, to make the score consistent with the era of the songs). Thus, you end up with mutilations of sound effects and orchestral tuning sounds that make no attempt to be consistent from cue to cue. When considering that Thomas Pasatieri orchestrated this effort, one can only conclude that this is the exact kind of experimental muck that Thomas Newman would produce if severely doped up and confined to his studio for a month straight. Despite Brion's creative intentions, the result is entirely unlistenable, and the volume isn't even great enough to make Punch-Drunk Love useful as a tool with which to irritate your neighbors. All we needed was a Middle Eastern female vocal to complete what is possibly the most irritatingly incoherent listening experience from the film score community in the entire decade.  *   @Amazon.com: CD or Download

Total Time: 44:12