Total Recall

This Jerry Goldsmith soundtrack release is worth extended attention. The album is pulsingly rhythmic from the start, beginning with syncopation driven by whipcrack percussion and a clock-precise digital synthesizer pulse, on which Goldsmith builds ascending orchestra chords that sneakily reference Mars from Holst's The Planets without utterly aping the piece; this builds to a climax and changes, softening before managing to indicate menace without using the easy escape of minor chords. For once, despite the inevitable digital synthesizers and distinctive electronic percussion, Goldsmith has fashioned a score that's primarily driven by the orchestra, rather than being primarily dependent on electronic keyboards. To that extent, it's a rather old-fashioned action/suspense score, building and releasing tension in many varied ways. "The Hologram" uses everything from a clock-like ticking to low-key orchestral discord to massive orchestral stabs designed to propel action along at a stunning rate, after which it's back to a supposedly calming effect -- which, of course, has a subtly unnerving counter-theme running through it. One can easily visualize action coupled to the music -- again, that old-fashioned, almost Hitchcockian nervousness where nothing makes any sense and everything is a threat. While themes, as always, reappear at points during the score, the repetition is kept to a minimum, which is also a plus. Also kept to a minimum is Goldsmith's tendency to insert the odd too-sweet theme (this worked very well with Gremlins 2, and not so well in other places). If anything, this particular score is a stunning display of Goldsmith's brilliance as a composer -- a great deal of it would not be out of place on the concert stage. By turns overwhelmingly dramatic, scary, and gorgeous, Total Recall is by far among Goldsmith's best, ranking with his score for the European release of Legend. On the audio and mastering side, Goldsmith engineer Bruce Botnick has done an excellent job, providing a clear and transparent stereo master that clearly delineates the separate instrument groups while maintaining an excellent balance of low, middle, and high (the bass is clean and powerful; this is usually the first area to suffer badly in a digital recording). ~ Steven McDonald