Press

This review was originally published at TheLogBook.com in May, 2005.
reprinted with permission.

Battlestar Galactica
Season One
music by Bear McCreary

REVIEW
Rocketed through the usual licensing hurdles in what may be record time for a TV soundtrack album (usually the process takes at least a year after the show's premiere, but in this case it was a mere few months), the first soundtrack from the weekly hour-long episodes of the new Battlestar Galactica is as near-exhaustingly visceral to listen to as the show is to watch. Nimbly leaping from ethnic polyrhythms to warlike martial drums as the situation demands, and sometimes layering one on top of the other, the action cues from this selection are some of the best I've heard, period - Starbuck Takes On All Eight is unrelenting enough to make one break a sweat while listening at a dead standstill. The Olympic Carrier delivers a cleverly literal treatment of the motif of the episode 33, dropping back to a ticking time-bomb of a strict one-beat-per-second meter as the action approaches its climax. And if Cylon sex scenes are your thing, grab Two Boomers and make yourself a sandwich (well, hey, it is an action scene of sorts...). It's not a stretch to say that virtually all of the key action cues from the first season are represented here - if that's what you're looking for here, you're not going to walk away disappointed.

It's not all in the action cues, though. Tracks such as Forgiven and Two Funerals lend the show's moments of human drama a lot of their weight, while Helo In The Warehouse is positiviely eerie. The miniseries isn't forgotten either, with clockwork-like tuned percussion serving as a signature for the Cylons (and specifically Number Six) in tracks such as Baltar Speaks With Adama. Many of the pieces, while they still touch on the miniseries' Mediterranean sound, also demonstrate a shift toward a somewhat wistful Gaelic sound. And after having grown accustomed to the show's avoidance of the leitmotif-heavy Wagner-by-way-of-Korngold-by-way-of-Williams scoring that's commonly associated with filmed science fiction, hearing a full-on orchestra is almost a shock to the system in Passacaglia and The Shape Of Things To Come, the latter dedicated to composer Bear McCreary's late mentor, Hollywood great Elmer Bernstein. There's another unexpected instrumental surprise with Flesh And Bone's guitar work. A fun handful of source cues appears as well, some with lyrics, and you'll probably be interested to read the translation of those lyrics in the liner notes.

And while the new Battlestar Galactica has escaped the "Star Wars Lite" style that both distinguished and occasionally hampered the original 1970s incarnation of Galactica, it's interesting to hear that themes do emerge. Characters and even concepts have their own musical and, occasionally, rhythmic signatures. But it's more subtle than what you may be accustomed to. After years and years of this genre, and really, a lot of other genres, being represented by droning orchestral and synth chords, it's a treat to hear barrages of military percussion, talking drums, wailing vocals, and what honestly sounds, in a few cases, like large pieces of metal slamming together (as cathartic as it is to listen to some of these pieces, it's got to be at least that much fun to be performing them!). The new Galactica demands a visceral, pulse-pounding sound, and Bear McCreary and his small army of musicians deliver it in spades. If the first episode of season two is anything to judge by, I'll go ahead and leave an open space for the season two soundtrack. No rush, though - I'll be listening to season one for quite a while yet.

RATING: 4 STARS

back to Press