CD REVIEW - Crash


Crash
Music by Mark Isham
Superb Records GUTCD55
15 Tracks 58:37 mins

Paul Haggis' Crash has been the subject of much critical praise for a long time now and has featured strongly this awards season, despite the film having been released a while ago. I thought it was about time I checked out Mark Isham's music, which has also been praised in many quarters.
Haggis has worked exclusively with Isham since 1996 when the latter scored the former's pilot for his short-lived TV series EZ Streets, and this score takes a similar approach to that show, featuring electronic atmospheres and haunting female vocals. There was however no soundtrack album for EZ Streets, more's the pity, so I could only judge by the music's effectiveness in the programme, and effective it was, especially the haunting Celtic-styled vocals. I haven't seen Crash, so cannot judge this score's effectiveness therein, and it may well be that when I do, I'll find it just as effective, but I doubt it. For a start, the uncredited female doesn't sing in English, which doesn't exactly warm me to her performances, though one Gladiator-styled song, first heard in the lengthy "Flames" is certainly uplifting as it builds powerfully to its conclusion, both in that track and the extended version heard in "Sense of Touch."
There's very little else to latch onto in the score, though "No Such Things as Monsters," has a lullaby-like quality to it. I'll definitely have to watch the film before I sign off on this score but, in the meantime, I certainly wouldn't advise anyone to buy the CD without first seeing the film.
Oh, by the way, the album concludes with two songs by Bird York and Stereophonics, for anyone interested.