By: John Reppion
Album Type: Full Length
Date Released: 19/10/2018
Label: EVP Recordings
The Review:
Forty
years after his atmospheric, autumnal slasher “Halloween” first
arrived on cinema screens, John Carpenter is back, not
with a new film (the 2018 “Halloween” having been written
and directed by David Gordon Green), but with another of his iconic
soundtracks. I say "back" but clearly, just like that
ever-babysitter-murdering serial garden-lurker Michael Myers, Carpenter never really went
away. His film work has been rightly praised for some time now, but it’s
only fairly recently that his music has been widely given the
credit it deserves.
Prior
to 2018’s “Halloween” soundtrack, the last new (i.e. not
remastered or anthologised) film scores Carpenter released were for “Vampires” (1998), and “Ghosts Of Mars” (2001),
neither of which had the synth-heavy sound he’s mostly known for.
2015’s “Lost Themes”,
and the following year’s “Lost Themes II” – written
and recorded with Carpenter’s
son Cody, and his godson, ex-Karma To Burn vocalist and guitarist, Daniel
Davies – were the first original, non-film albums from Carpenter, and both had that authentic electronic sound
most of us associate with the man and his work. The trio started
touring together in 2016, performing Carpenter’s film
themes alongside their own compositions, and last year released “Anthology: Movie Themes 1974–1998”,
featuring their re-recorded versions of pretty much all the Carpenter classics.
It’s
this trio of Carpenter, Carpenter, and Davies (son of Kinks guitarist Dave Davies by the way, just in
case you find that interesting) who are responsible for the twenty-one
tracks on the “Halloween Motion Picture Soundtrack”. So, right
from the outset, you can be sure we’re in safe hands. That’s so long as you’re
a fan of John Carpenter’s previous musical offerings of course;
admittedly there’s not much on offer here if you’re not. If, however, you’re
someone like me whose idea of fun is to sit and listen through “Prince
of Darkness”, or indeed “Lost Themes”, then I think
it’s fairly certain you’re going to enjoy “Halloween”.
Rather
than being a reboot or offshoot of the original franchise, the
2018 “Halloween” is a played as a direct sequel to the 1978
film with Jamie Lee Curtis reprising her role as Laurie Strode, the girl Mike
Mayers couldn’t kill. Most of the titles on the soundtrack give away a bit more
of the plot than we probably should at this point (given that it’s only been on
general release for a couple of weeks) so, in the interest of trying not spoil
the film for anyone who’s looking forward to it, I won’t go through every
single track here.
“Halloween
Theme” is a pumped up heart-beat kick-drum driven version of the original,
very much in the spirit which Carpenter’s touring trio now perform it. “Laurie’s Theme”
has that lovely mix of melancholic, tense, and eerie that Carpenter does so well. This is even
more evident in “Prison Montage” which gets near to the Duffer
Brothers type synth-wave stuff people now often tend to lump him in with, but it’s much
grittier, and heavier than that. As is often the case, elements of the
main theme are used as a motif which recurs throughout the soundtrack as a
whole. “The Bogyman” is a short, doleful, down-tempo
example of this, just like “Ghost Story” is on “The
Fog” soundtrack.
There
are big distorted stabs, pulse pounding arpeggios, sinister synth
strings, terrifying saw-toothed swells, and moody pianos. It is
a master-class in electronic horror sound-tracking, and is, in my humble
opinion, as good an album as Carpenter has ever put out. “Michael Kills”
and “Michael Kills Again” (whose titles I don’t think are giving
anything away that we couldn’t have already worked out) are perfect examples
of, not just how good a composer and performer Carpenter is, but how he’s managed to move
forward and stay fresh and modern sounding, while maintaining his signature
style. Often copied but never bettered, if you want the real thing then the new
“Halloween” soundtrack is as good as it gets.
Now
if you’ll excuse me, I have some pumpkins to carve. Weirdly though, the knife I
had ready seems to have gone missing…
“Halloween: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack”
is available here
Info:
bandcamp
