Silva Screen Records, available digitally now

 

Sherlock’s composers David Arnold and Michael Price team up again to score Mark Gatiss’ and Steven Moffat’s three part horror drama.

As assignments go, scoring a Dracula project must be up there with scoring a Bond or a Sherlock Holmes, and as he’d already done the first two, you can guess why David Arnold was on board for this trilogy of made-for-TV mini movies, each offering a different shift in tone. Each instalment can be watched as stand-alone, the nefarious vampire count being the core through-line, with each 90 minutes offering a different musical approach.

The main theme (and it’s a belter) is the glue that holds the material together, and it’s a strident, scratchy composition that’s both contemporary and gothic at the same time. There’s no point in trying to ape Hammer’s James Bernard, or even the more recent John Williams or Wojciech Kilar scores – the duo have here created something as bespoke as the show itself.

Running to 78 minutes, the 31 tracks cover off the best of the series. Elsewhere it has been reported that the composers sampled the beating of wooden coffins, screaming babies and the rim of a glass full of blood. And indeed there are number of dissonant and off-putting sounds within, but never in a tricksy way or at the expense of the thematic material. Pulsing Jugular is initially a terrifying, throbbing beast of a composition that transitions into something quite different. As with the series the release supports, nothing is quite as you’d expect.

David Arnold previously scored the Chattering Order of St Beryl in Good Omens, and now he’s scoring Sister Agatha and the doomed occupants of a convent in Budapest (he’s second to nun! Ho ho!) the beautiful female chorals in Sermon turning sour as Dracula goes on his rampage. Hello Jonny is a beautiful love theme among the carnage, while closing track The Fear really pumps up the romantic sweep.

Verdict: Among the sturm und drang of the high drama (That is Everything) there’s some beautiful moments of peace and optimism, and it’s a joy to listen to these cues uncoupled from the screen. 9/10

Nick Joy