Hans Zimmer.

Fox Music

Out Now on CD and download (though there is a second disc coming, apparently)

Zimmer and his studio has, or have, been a leading name in film scores for nearly 30 years, from the very electronic and synth action epics of the 90s such as The Rock, through to more introspective modern pieces for the likes of Interstellar and Dunkirk.

Zimmer has said in interviews that he was aiming for a Henry Purcell kind of sound, and the influence of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas does come through in the main leitmotif of the score, first really coming to the fore in the track titled Amity, before returning in Reckless, Insertion, and the Coda, which riff on that long falling note from Dido’s Lament. That all works well.

The less successful element is where Zimmer recycles his own earlier scores. This score tries very hard to be both electronic and electric-guitar heavy on action front like his late 90s scores, and simultaneously otherworldly and serious like his more recent material for the Christopher Nolan movies, but ends up lurching rather uncomfortably between them, and not managing to live up to either.

Notably, the opening of the first track, Gap, seems like a curtailed version of the opening from his The Dark Knight score, while the electric guitars of Frameshift are reminiscent of something from The Rock but played at half speed, before the vocals come in to save it. Once the Purcell material comes through in the second half, especially in Insertion and the Coda, you could be forgiven for thinking you’ve accidentally put on a track from Inception.

Verdict: It’s not that it’s a bad score – it couldn’t be, really, as Zimmer still knows his stuff better than almost anybody else in the business – and there are good moments, especially in the second half, but it’s seriously derivative of earlier scores, while failing to quite match them. In a way it kind of feels like someone doing a fair Zimmer pastiche, and not being sure which era to pastiche, rather than the genuine article. 7/10

David A McIntee