PRINTER FRIENDLY VIEW
(inverts site colors)

•	2013 Album

There are a handful of marginally clever motifs that Debney utilizes throughout The Relic, but none of them is given enough development or full enunciation to be considered as the overarching identity of the work. The "End Credits" cue motions through these ideas with monotonous pacing, following the "Lucky Bullet" conclusion in logically combining the score's main two identities. The actual primary theme is a very slight, three-note theme quoted by brass and the lowest registers of the ensemble that follows the beast, and its most interesting incarnations come on top of the militaristic confrontation cues in the score's latter half. This intentionally unpleasant idea camouflages itself well amongst dissonant ramblings because of its similarly distasteful progressions, making it rather difficult to latch onto. A motif for the sake of mystery is used in nearly every major cue in the film. This two-note, descending alternation is only barely effective as a tool for continuity. Additionally, Debney relies on a tingling and plucking string effect to represent the awful monster's offensive nature, and while the use of this technique is put to adequate employment here, it's somewhat of a cliche in and of itself. None of these elements really leaves an impression as strong as the simplistic bashing of the ensemble for the actual attack sequences. While utilizing some unconventional piano strikes and other percussion creativity, Debney ultimately relies heavily on standard orchestral slashes and hits, the kind of pedestrian, B-rate techniques that synthesizers have imitated for years. He also liberally quotes the bold and frenetic strokes of strings that Bernard Herrmann utilized in Psycho, but without the intelligent introduction or conveyance of those ideas. Everything in The Relic is provided at the wholesale level, whether you're forced to tolerate generic horror surprises or countless cues of lengthy, minimalistic voids. The score understandably never received a commercial release (its "End Credits" suite is really all anyone needed for a compilation of Debney's achievements), though it was the sixth of John Debney's original series of official promotional albums in the late 1990's. Within just two years of the 42-minute promo's distribution through soundtrack specialty outlets, it became a hot collectible, and, like the promo of I Know What You Did Last Summer, fetched over $100 per copy. In 2013, La-La Land afforded the score a wider album release, pressing over an hour of its length on a limited CD that will easily test the tolerance levels of most listeners. To think that fans actually paid such high sums of money for this mediocre horror venture on the promotional album for so long is far more genuinely terrifying that anything the music itself has to offer.  **   @Amazon.com: CD or Download

Bias Check:

For John Debney reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.33 (in 56 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.09 (in 49,879 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.