Enemy of the State

Review by Thomas Glorieux:

This type of scoring will never get an Oscar for original sounding, neither is there a lot of material that sounds new to the trained ear of the Media Ventures persons and composers. But it's the challenge of the 2 composers to make their projects as high profile as possible. Trevor Rabin obviously had the greatest impact on the scoring because it sounds of a mix between Con Air and Deep Blue Sea, though Harry Gregson - Williams wrote half the music and half the themes, like 'Brill's Theme'. With Con Air I mean the electronic sounds that add the roughness of the score to greater level and other tones reminds you simply so much of Deep Blue Sea, the main theme sounds a bit on the same level. And yet, I can find myself actually liking the attempt they produced and composed. But this is a score that only sounds good in the ears to those that simply didn't hate a score like Con Air. Enemy of the State has a good main theme, it's been used on several moments and it gets a mighty treatment in 'Enemy of the State Main Theme', arguably the best moment on the disc for any person. Many tracks do add a lot of synthesized sound effects, remind you what you heard in Con Air. They fit with the electronic high tech genre of the movie and to some level did I never found them odd or bad. But of course, sometimes do they sound a bit boring or simply the same.

But the action moments that include the various chase scenes are in my part enjoyable. This soundtrack for instance doesn't use the electric guitar much, to maybe some peoples relief, but the entire synthesized score is of course also something that can not sound like a drag. This release is surprisingly long, normally these efforts tend to sound 30 minutes and that's all, but this score rises over 50 minutes, even 55 minutes long almost. This makes the score a bit harder for those who hate every moment of it and it will please Media Ventures fans for the extra and unexpected long release. I tend to say that some moments or tracks did became a bit tiring, especially in the tracks 12, 13 and 14. But when the electronic background faded away and the action rhythm entered it did put me back on the face of the earth. Especially track 15 'Coal Yard Part 2' succeeded very much with a cool version of the main theme and an attractive action movement. Enemy of the State has nothing new under the sun if you compare it with other scores, it just has different themes and other musical movements. I advice you to ignore Enemy of the State then if you really hated Con Air and in lesser ways Deep Blue Sea, but true Media Ventures fanatics and other Rabin enthusiasts could find their luck in a generous amount of listening material and some better moments of score.

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Tracks

Single Disc

1. Main Titles (1.58)

2. Enemy Of The State Main Theme (2.53)

3. Brill's Theme (3.28)

4. The Ferry (1.16)

5. Hotel Chase Part 2 (3.45)

6. Zavitz Chase Part 1 (2.02)

7. NSA Research (2.35)

8. Brill And Dean Meet (4.12)

9. Free Ferry (0.37)

10. Nanny Drive (1.32)

11. Final Confrontation (8.43)

12. Coal Yard Part 1 (3.40)

13. Face To Face (3.09)

14. The Tunnel Part 1 (1.55)

15. Coal Yard Part 2 (4.53)

16. Rachel's Found Dead (5.17)

17. Wish You Were Here (1.59)

Total Length: 54.12

The use of artwork or photos is posted for non profitable reasons

=== Link to Composer Sites: Trevor Rabin & Harry Gregson - Williams ===