Originally
published in Skyscraper
I must confess I’ve reached
my saturation point with music that sounds like it was written
for a non-existent movie. Not that it can’t be done well,
but it often just means an excuse for a musician to record a disk
full of incredibly derivative instrumental music. Some of these
efforts sound more like resume tapes, what with the requisite
pastiche of sci-fi, spaghetti westerns, and particularly James
Bond movies they’ve so thoroughly exploited of late. And
with accomplished soundtrack artists like David Holmes practically
raining real soundtracks of great quality upon us, you know, what’s
the point?
So now comes Deadly Avenger’s
debut album Deep Red and, for me, the timing could be bad for
poor Mr. Damon Baxter, the mastermind behind said disk (with help
from noted soundsculptor Howie B). The opener “We Took Pelham,”
(a nod to the 70’s crime flick The Taking of Pelham One,
Two, Three) was recorded with the Budapest Film Orchestra and
hopes to be a sweeping opening credits sorta deal—in fact,
it’s an adaptation of the Rocky tune “Going the Distance.”
Unfortunately, it’s more a bland mélange of soundtrack
clichés: the stabbing strings, the foreboding chimes, the
shimmering cymbals, the martial trumpets, and (of course!) the
rolling kettledrums. Fortunately, things get a little more interesting
with the second track “Punisher” even if it does sound
like a Chemical Brothers knock-off. “In Pursuit of the Pimpmobile”
is better and sounds like something David Holmes could’ve
hammered together for the Ocean’s Eleven soundtrack. In
fact, you’re likely to flash to David Holmes and Craig Armstrong
(“Lopez”) on a few of these tracks. “The Quest
Part 1” has a groovy middle eastern feel and a bitchin’
bass line. “Blade” follows and tickles the ears nicely,
too, with roiling acid sound, followed by “Day One”
which gets all discogroovy. Since we’re all about movie
moods here, there’s also an inconsequential love number
(“Love Sounds”), but the disk rounds out with the
admittedly stunning sci-fi trilogy: “Black Sun,” the
Shadoweque “Deep Red,” and “Outro.”
Despite my bad attitude, the more
I listened to Deep Red, the more it grew on me. It’s a patchy
effort, but maybe it suggests there’s still more to be scraped
from the bottom of the pseudo-soundtrack barrel.
Official
Web site
Robert Stribley
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