CD REVIEW - Poseidon



Poseidon
Music by Klaus Badelt
A & M B0006811-02
11 Tracks 41:49 mins

This is quite a brief album to start with, but there is in fact only just under 30 minutes of score on this soundtrack to the recent reworking of the popular 1970s disaster flick, the first three tracks being taken up with two songs from Fergie and one from Federico Aubele.
Badelt mixes orchestra and electronics, with just a hint of choir for his score, which commences with the big and impressive, rhythmic theme for "The Poseidon." This theme resurfaces (if you pardon the pun) in key moments throughout the subsequent score tracks. "The Wave" is suitably menacing and exciting, whilst "A Map and a Plan" is rhythmic and purposeful. "Fire Dive," after a low-key start, reprises the main theme, with the lengthy "Claustrophobia" moving along expectantly and suspensefully to a broad statement of the main theme, which then turns more reflective. "Drowning" is largely atonal and mournful, with "Don't Look Down" the most electronically driven track, at times sporting a Bourne-like rhythm, before rushing to a big climax features choir for the only time here. The album concludes with "Escape," which starts out reflective, before reprising the main theme in all its glory.
Whilst purpose not the epic work that Badelt wrote for his other recent assignment The Promise, this is nevertheless a thoroughly serviceable and entertaining score, whatever the merits or otherwise of the film it serves.