Various Composers

Netflix

The very varied musical accompaniment to a very varied collection of tales…

Unusually even for an anthology show these days, the eight episodes of this series each have a different composer, plus a one-off extra in one, and the overarching series theme.

The series’ main theme is a nice and somewhat Elfman-ish piece mainly of high strings by Holly Amber Church, and this opener is quickly followed both in every episode and the soundtrack by “Cabinet Of Curiosities Prologue,” as creator Guillermo del Toro appears on screen to introduce each episode. This is a version of the same melody as the theme, but in more of a gentle piano form.

From then on we have a few tracks from each episode’s composer and score, starting with four tracks from Australian conductor and orchestrator Tim Davies, who has worked on the likes of The Simpsons Movie, Frozen, Minions, Ant Man, and Wanda-vision. Here he gives us a fairly standard modern horror score of dark and moody tones, though “Looking For The Book” counterpoints these with surprising tinkly bells also.

Episode 2 is composed by Canadian Jeff Danna, composer for The Boondoock Saints and its sequel, and more recently the animated Addams Family movies along with his brother Michael. The Addams connection is worth bearing in mind, as there’s a great range of sinister and blackly comedic accompaniment here, with “The Black Church” starting with ominous violins, progressing to the usual threatening synth notes, then finishing with a pounding chase beat that ends on a light turn, while “His Name Is Masson” runs the Addams-ish gamut from strings giving a faux American Gothic feel, through bassoons and helter-skelter orchestration that could so easily accompany Wednesday, Pugsley and Fester on a weird adventure. “Ascent To Hell” and “The Queen Rat” are variations on motif of starting lightly and like an off-kilter parlour foursome before jumping into pulsing strings of flight and fate.

Three episodes from original Hellraiser composer Christopher Young represent the third episode, and quite a minimalist score. Yes there’s a very pretty and yet unsettling strings theme first, “The Autopsy,” followed by a track of plucked strings ending in jarring grab-your-head noise, and then ending off with skin-crawling vice backing for taut and nervous strings, with a spot of musique concrete. This one’s a score you can feel, horribly. Which is the point, of course, so this is a very good thing.

It’s back to four tracks for episode 4, from Italian Daniele Lupi, who worked on Netflix’s Marco Polo series, and films like The Lego Movie. This is a fairly traditionalist horror score, relying heavily on plucked strings for effect, and having male and female vocals in a humming-along sort of mode rather than a moody choir way. It’s a nostalgic vibe, and “In The Bathtub” even has what sounds like quoted passages from The X-Files, or at least is quite similar in places.

Episode 5 gets seven tracks from Australian Michael Yezerski, who worked on many Australian films, as well as Transformers Age Of Extinction. This one deserves its greater representation, really feeling like a full-length movie score. Opening in “Thurber, 1909,” we have plenty of characterful piano and string orchestrations throughout, and especially also in “Dreams Of Horror And Wonder,” “The Feast Part 1 And Changing Times” and “The Feast Part 2”. On the other side of the coin, it goes full disturbing and pulls out all the horror tricks in the book from synth drones to screeching strings to electronic noise for “My Work.” This could be an album in its own right.

Episode 6 has five tracks from Anne Chmelewski, the French composer for Where Hands Touch and Netflix’s Ricky Gervais show Derek. This is a more normal modern horror sound, relying on those synth void sounds and discordant elements, though there are some nice melodic moments to the likes of “Frank Arrives”.

Episode 7 is represented by “The Viewing Suite”, a single track from Daniel Lopatin, better known in his releases as the experimental electronic artist Oneohtrix Point Never, or OPN. It’s not unexpected, then, that this is a piece of electronica, about three-quarters of which has the same John Carpenter-ish vibe as the scores for Stranger Things, but which then ends with a far more 80s action feel that sounds as if Crockett and Tubbs are about to stumble into spookiness at a nightclub.

The final episode is graced by a score from Alien Covenant, Assassin’s Creed, Babadook and Overlord composer Jed Kurzel, supplying four tracks. These are, likewise, more in line with typical modern horror scores, though “Murmuring” develops a nicely flowing melody. “Scream” on the other hand, starts and ends almost silently, with a screeching discordance in the middle – which does what it says on the tin, but means you can only really hear the first and last thirds of the track with earphones on, meaning you’re risking your eardrums in the middle…

The album is rounded off by “Mal Hombre” a coolly effective song from Guatemalan guitarist and singer Gaby Moreno, whose work was previously heard on screen in the fine score for La Llorona.

 

This album isn’t just the score for a TV anthology show: it’s an anthology in its own right, that would work as a sinister and speculative concept album in its own right, and nothing about it suggests that this is coincidental. It’s surely part of a multimedia concept project on del Toro’s part. If not, then he can probably take the credit and not say anything to contrary.

It’s a marvellous thing to have this mix of lesser and better known composers from around the world, in different subgenres of the musical equivalent of Weird Tales as a genre. It gives the album a whole new layer of intrigue and interest, and on the listening front the vast majority of it is very good. Even the less good ones bring new composers to the attention, so it’s all to the good.

Verdict: You won’t like all of it, given the variety and the truism that you can’t please all of the people all of the time, but you’ll most likely love enough of it if you’re a fan of the genre or soundtracks in general. 10/10

David A McIntee