Battlestar Galactica: Season 2
By Bear McCreary
Reviewed By Dan
Rating: 9/10

Review

When the show first premiered, “Battlestar Galactica” strived to ‘reinvent’ the sci-fi genre. It’s debatable whether or not they've succeeded, but what can't be doubted is they’ve brought more viewers to the genera than any other recent show.

In keeping with this revision, the producers basically threw out close to 50 years of traditional science fiction scoring. There are no big, bombastic John Williams orchestrations. There is no sweeping, majestic theme. For the most part, all the above has been tossed out for an ethnic, new-age feel.

Bear McCreary was assigned to “Battlestar” Galactica in a roundabout way. McCreary, a protégé of the late Elmer Bernstein, was Richard Gibbs' assistant when he scored the original miniseries back in 2003. Due to time constraints, McCreary was handed all of the action cues while Gibbs took all of the dramatic cues. The results did not set the world on fire. In fact, I don't believe I've seen a web site that gave the miniseries album more than a two star review, and I can't say I blame them.

The miniseries showed another way of scoring space opera that they broke one cardinal rule: the result was absolutely boring. The soundtrack was so dry and minimalist that tracks rolled into one another. Another rule they broke was the lack of a strong main theme. If you don't want to use a traditional orchestra, that's fine, but you need to have a strong, identifiable main theme. It doesn't have to be a triumphant march, but it has to be there.

When Richard Gibbs was unable to score the first season of “Galactica” due to his movie career, Bear McCreary stepped in and started to make this method work. Learning from their mistakes, the producers allowed McCreary more of a free hand in developing the music. As it progressed, additional layers were introduced into the music along with more instruments other than taiko drums, duduks, and wailing chant. By the end of the season, even a semblance of an actual orchestra appeared. True, the small string orchestra was used in a more minimalist fashion, owing more to John Adams than John Williams, but somehow everything coalesced together.

For the second season, McCreary's talents really got a chance to shine. Through out the season, there's more of a variety in the music instead of endless drumming and moaning. McCreary's musical 'voice' started to appear. Sure, there are a couple tracks like "Scar" and "Baltar's Dream" that are reminiscent of the miniseries/early Season One style. The string segments used towards the end of the first season have become a staple of the series, adding to the musical tapestry. In tracks like "Escape From the Farm" and "Allegro," the strings provide the foundation for all the various percussion bits to branch from, giving the tracks a more unified feel.

In probably the most surprising bit of the soundtrack, McCreary adds a brass section to a couple of tracks. The last half of the "Martial Law" track adds a solo French Horn to the proceedings, giving it a mournful sound as Colonel Tigh announces martial law to the entire fleet into martial law. The lead off track, "Colonial Anthem," displays a proud retelling of the Stu Phillips' original "Battlestar Galactica." It's a great blending of traditional orchestral scoring and the established sound. I wish the series would do this a bit more often as it works so well. I understand why they don't in the same way why the use of choir is rationed out in film scores. If you start using this all the time, it stops being special. It just becomes another music cue which is the wrong direction for the series, and it costs quite a bit of money.

Among other instruments added to the fold are guitars and drums sets in tracks like "Pegasus" and "Something Dark Is Coming,” two standout tracks on the album. For some reason, it just seems to work with the musical soundscape of the show. I know when I first saw heard it in the series, I was completely taken by surprise, but a good composer is able to take ordinary things we hear every day and turn it around to smack you right in the face.

For me, it's the string section that steals this entire album. The before mentioned "Allegro" is a nice piece set in the same style as "Passacaglia" and "The Shape of Things To Come" from the Season One soundtrack. We even get themes this time around. In "Roslin and Adama," McCreary introduces a delicate theme for the two characters on solo violin reminiscent of "Black Hawk Down." "Reuniting the Fleet" signals the Gaelic sounding family theme presented last year in "Wander My Friends" and "The Lighter."

In the greatest track of the album, "Prelude To War" is an 8:25 symphonic extravaganza. Several months before release, McCreary had the first two minutes released on his website. I listened to it enough times to drive most people mad. When I finally got this soundtrack, I though it would be old hat. However, for this release, the track it also combines elements from "Resurrection Ship Part I" and "Part II." The tracks starts out coving the last two minutes of "Pegasus," followed by the first five minutes of "Resurrection Ship Part I" and the entire Cylon battle in "Part II." Even if you know the first two minutes down to the sheet music, the remainder holds your interest and builds from that point.

It's easily one of the best tracks that I've heard in the last several years, and it's from a TV show! This isn't the way it's supposed to happen. TV music is suppose to be bland, 'mickey mousie,' and provided just enough boost to the action, but not be 'interesting' or 'memorable.' McCreary is actually writing music that rivals some of the best film composers of today. The album builds to a close with "Worthy of Survival." In it, almost every single element introduced in the album combines to bring the season to a close.

In such a great soundtrack, there are a few missteps. The "Battlestar Galactica Main Title" is a leftover from the first Season. It does serve as a reminder of how much the music has progressed in the series, but it just takes up space on the album better used for another track from this year. Hopefully, McCreary will get a chance to compose a new theme for Season 3. "Lords of Kobol" stumbles out of the gate with more Middle Eastern chant mixed way to high and overpowers the underlying music. It levels out towards the end, but odds are you'll have already skipped to the next track by then.

For some reason, the album ends with "Black Market," which La-La-Land Records makes a big deal of having several members of the band "Oingo Boingo" adding their talents to the piece. While the band did give film music Danny Elfman, Richard Gibbs, and Orchestrator Steve Bartek, it hasn't done much else to warrant the attention. It's not a bad track, but why is it at the end of the album? After "Roslin Confesses," "One Year Later," and "Worthy of Survival," the album builds to a momentous point and just peeters out. If it was placed earlier in the album, there wouldn't be much to complain about, but at the end, it just lets all the air out of the bag.

A problem all modern soundtracks deal with is the limitation of the CD format. A CD can only hold 80 minutes of music, assuming there isn't any CD-ROM data on the disc. Most of the time, producers put way too much music on CD, but watching the series, several tracks I hoped would be on the soundtrack didn't make it due to length reasons. I hoped the percussive battle music from "Scattered" and "The Captain's Hand" would make the CD, but there's no trace of music from either episode except for the main title. I know from experience if you're going to criticize something, you better have an idea on how to correct it. With only 80 minutes, I can't think of what to cut out to fit an additional sixteen minutes of music.

If anything, I hope in La-La-Land Records will release an additional album of what was left off from the first two seasons. I know of several instances when recording labels will release additional albums. "Braveheart, "Gladiator, and "Titanic" received such attention and from the sounds of things, "Battlestar Galactica" has been a high seller for La-La-Land Records. It's a feasible plan, at least. At any rate, I’ll be there with a pre-order when that's announced.

I know through the brief history of my reviews, I've rambled on and on about a composer's individual voice. For “X-Men: The Last Stand,” John Powell abandoned the style he's developed over the years in favor of a more traditional approach. I know from listening to his previous albums, John Ottman's voice varies on what temp track is in the film. For “Battlestar Galactica,” all of these tracks are unmistakably written, recorded, and produced by Bear McCreary. In writing two seasons of music, he has developed a voice unlike any composer working today. I know there's been recent talks of "Battlestar" getting Emmy nominations in the creative areas, but anything short of an award is a slap in the face.

I hope one day he moves on to bigger and better things, filling the void that Elmer Bernstein left after his untimely demise. For now, I can definitely be content with these "year-end" soundtracks, and I'm actually more excited about the Season 3 soundtrack than I am for Season 3 itself. Here's hoping Bear McCreary's future is a bright one.