URBAN LEGEND

CHRISTOPHER YOUNG

Rating:

Original Review: If you can get past the five brain-numbing pop songs at the start of this CD, Christopher Young's score for Urban Legend turns out to be nothing short of a genre masterpiece. The film's director, a young Australian by the name of Jamie Blanks, specifically asked for Young to score his movie after being impressed by the composer's earlier work on classic scores such as Hellraiser and Dream Lover. The movie itself, which is another one of the Scream-style self-aware horror thrillers with a cast of young, good-looking twentysomethings being terrorised by a man in a parka, was rather poorly received by the cinema-going audience. Young's score, though, has gone on to be lauded as the best horror score of 1998. Despite being confined to only two tracks, lasting five and ten minutes respectively, the underscore included here gives a highly enjoyable example of Young's work. The first track, 'Urban Legend', begins by presenting the main title - a dreamy affair consisting of looped female voices breathing softly over a bed of hypnotic violins, creating a mood of quiet menace - sort of like the theme from Edward Scissorhands, but where the knives are sharper and more dangerous. Three minutes in, the music changes tack and goes headlong into the first of many supercharged stalking-chasing-and-killing cues. Violins wail like things possessed, drums rumble and thunder like violent storms overhead, and horns and trumpets hurl out their notes in swift, stabbing blasts. As Young himself puts it in the generous liner notes, "the orchestra is just screaming bloody murder throughout". The second track, 'Sex Advice With An Axe', continues the trend, only this time the music is accompanied by increasingly shrill flutes and violins which pierce through the tumult like blades though soft flesh. There is a subtle second performance of the main theme half way through, followed by a brilliant new rhythmic pattern of repeated string phrases which seem to signify movement, before a final, almost mandatory chase scene to bring the score cuts to a close. What's so good about Young's music is that, whereas a lesser composer may have simply relied on noise to put across the message, here the noise is tempered by a recognisable structure and an identifiable internal rhythm which keeps everything on an even keel: it's suitably rousing and frightening, but it's also very listenable. It's thematic dissonance, if you can imagine such a thing. After Milan released this commercial CD, Christopher Young and Douglass Fake of Intrada released a promotional CD of Young's complete score. For those who are curious but unsure about Urban Legend, I would recommend checking out this CD before splashing out on the expensive promo - it may not appeal to all tastes. However, for those who already know just how good a composer Young is, I would go straight for the promo if you can find it. In the opinion of this reviewer, the score for Urban Legend is destined to become a legend in its own right in the annals of horror movie music.

Track Listing: Running Time: 35 minutes 57 seconds

Milan 74321-63477-2 (1998)

Music composed by Christopher Young. Conducted by Pete Anthony. Orchestrations by Christopher Young and Pete Anthony. Recorded and mixed by Robert Fernandez. Edited by Richard Whitfield. Album produced by Christopher Young.


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