Like
The Sixth Sense most specifically, Howard contributes
to the story with a heightened emphasis on one section of the orchestra. In the
aforementioned film, it was the piano. Here, the piano is joined by a doubling up
on harps and several woodwind instruments, including mostly flutes, oboes and
clarinets. Their often fanciful, off-tone performances are combined with a plucking
string motif at low volumes, forming a style of mystery well-suited for the
small-town nature of crop circle incidents. That motif is specifically a rising
three-note figure that increases its presence as the film progresses, occasionally
inverting when the primary characters are their most frightened. There is
technically a title theme that develops fully in "The Hand of Fate - Part 2," but
even this noble string and horn performance is dominated by the flowing repetitions
of this three-note progression that whimsically flutters about the soundscape. In
its most fluid and harmonic presentations, ranging from the surprisingly optimistic
midsection of "Boarding Up the House" to the extremely pleasant "The Hand of Fate
- Part 2," Howard collectors will note stylistic similarities between this material
and the intoxicating rhythmic personality of
Lady in the Water (and parts of
The Village). In a general sense, Howard achieves a major accomplishment in
his score for
Signs by creating suspense out of an interstellar incident
while also employing instrumentation and a tone appropriate to small town America
and the mentality and simplicity of its farming lifestyle. Howard utilizes the
violins in a fiddle-like technique of inserting them off key for quiet periods
while the rest of the players perform their regular rhythmic motifs. Slight
electronics, never as important in their volume or role as in other
Howard/Shyamalan scores, offer the suspense associated with extra-terrestrial life,
and their background consistency is toned to perfection in the wondrous "In the
Cornfield." The light and occasionally charming tone of Howard's fluffy three-note
motif maintains a comfortable environment for much of the score, perhaps to tease
the minds of the audience into believing that there is something intrinsically neat
about crop circles, or perhaps to play to the ill-fated notion that whatever is
producing them must be benevolent. Several cues finish the cells of these string
and woodwind motifs with a seductive flourish of a harp or two. A false sense of
security is a strong asset in this approach.
The constructs of
Signs are intended for slight,
minimalistic performances for most of the score, requiring the kind of appreciation
on album that suggests elevated volumes. Only in a few cues does Howard resort to
the necessary full orchestra hits for sudden, frightening moments on screen. The
most interesting of these moments is "Main Titles," which contains some of the
score's most robust horror material. By evoking Bernard Herrmann's most effective
techniques for establishing a tense atmosphere, Howard sets up the listener for a
level of extroverted
Psycho-like shrieking and blasting that never really
develops in the remainder of the work. Instead, the majority of the rest of the
score exists in a somber realm of low brass and the occasional repetition of the
primary motif in multiple keys. On album, the listener will encounter only a few
truly engaging sequences of harmony before the extremely powerful "The Hand of Fate
- Part 2" closes the listening experience with the ultimate in positive resolution.
The personality of the score lies in the difficult subtleties of precise
instrumentation and the shifty, rising motif. The most attractive aspect of most of
the Howard/Shyamalan scores is the composer's keen sense of rhythmic propulsion,
whether stylish in the contemporary setting of
Unbreakable, classical in the
alluring violin performances of
The Village, or hypnotic in the fantasy
environment of
Lady in the Water. In
Signs, this rising motif is so
obviously the heart of the music that it succeeds despite its simplistic construct.
The score's detraction is its inability (logically) to express itself clearly until
its closing moments, leaving many bare moments of empty space. It isn't as haunting
as
The Sixth Sense, nor perhaps as creative as
Unbreakable. Its
highlights can't compete with
The Village and
Lady in the Water,
though it's a superior album experience when compared to the more troubled
The
Happening. It lacks the beauty of similarly constructed suspense scores of the
time, such as John Debney's
Dragonfly. At 45 minutes, the album for
Signs is reasonable in length, though short in memorable material and
heavily reliant on the mood it creates. As part of a compilation of Howard's music
for the director, it has upwards of ten solid minutes to contribute, and don't be
surprised if you seek far more material from its peers.
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