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The score by Fiedel, on the other hand, failed to establish either a style or a convincing theme. Its construction is based upon several choppy motifs that carry it minimally during its action sequences and are otherwise absent. The lack of a strong, fluid theme is painfully present in the hard-edged opening credits, when Fiedel's leading five-note motif (a rip-off of his own Terminator theme) slams its way through several abrupt performances before largely disappearing in the rest of the score (outside of "Escape from the Chateau"). The sustained action music throughout the score suffers from the same choppy rhythms and annoying synthetic (or not; it's hard to tell) string accompaniment that meanders brutally through the background. The electronic samples used by Fiedel in many places betray the limited capabilities of his library, sounding appropriate for a film seven or eight years older. The mix of individual groups of musicians in this material is awful, with horns and trumpets misbalanced within the same recording, thus restricting any minimal flow the theme may have had. At its height, this action music is a cheap imitation of stock Jerry Goldsmith material of the era, but without any creativity in instrumentation or style in performance. In its statements of broader romance, the score (during, for instance, the silver screen "Nuclear Kiss" moment) presents its harmonies in the same wishy-washy fashion that Dennis McCarthy often explores with mundane results in his television scores, with no bite and no resounding power. Even outside of the dry action cues, the sound quality of the recording is also suspect, with the orchestra sounding as though it was performing in a closet. A better mix of wet resonance would have greatly helped to alleviate the staggered, synthetically grating personality of the score. The best of Fiedel's contribution, believe it or not, is the slower material for which he occasionally uses contemporary keyboarding, snappy rhythm-setters, or a muted trumpet, among other soloists, to accentuate scenes of snazzy romance or espionage.

The composer doesn't even attempt to provide the crazed terrorists with any musical identity; a stereotypical Middle Eastern motif may have been out of place had it been employed, but a cue like "Island Suite," as scored, has no real sense of menace or impending doom that good villains of this kind deserve. Fiedel's sense for tension is unconvincing. The conclusive "Harry Saves the Day" barely makes an attempt to weave the title theme into a heroic adaptation, instead following the predictable path of anonymity. The album is another major detraction from this overall picture. As mentioned before, the songs "I Never Thought I'd See the Day" and "Por Una Cabeza" are the musical highlights of the film, and yet, neither appears on the album. Leading to hundreds upon hundreds of angry movie-goers who purchased the product for these tracks, the lack of these pieces on the album is an inexcusable embarrassment to Sony. Instead, we are presented with five hard rock songs, few of which represent the style of the music actually heard in the film. To make matters worse, an overly generous portion of Fiedel's score occupies the rest of the album, with a handful of relatively inactive cues that are completely unnecessary on the pressing. Combined with the flat sound quality of the product as a whole, the music on the True Lies album is a waste of time and money. For such an outstanding film, it is hard to imagine just how this mediocre score and disgraceful album could have resulted. Fiedel's career in scoring top-level blockbusters would thankfully end with True Lies, and the composer failed to land an assignment to even the subsequent Terminator film. For die-hard True Lies fans, the good news is that the "I Never Thought I'd See the Day" dance song for Curtis and the "Por Una Cabeza" tango can be found readily on other albums. But that does not excuse the lack of a complete (or even adequate) album for this particular film, and the score and album cannot be recommended at any level. The film itself, however, is a modern classic, making it a rare case in which a fantastic action picture is forced to carry an ineffective and uninteresting score.  *   @Amazon.com: CD or Download

Total Time: 70:42