I'm not privy to the circumstances surrounding newcomer John Murphy getting the assignment of scoring City by the Sea, but it's good to see a couple of new names during 2002 come onto the film music scene. (Well, I say "newcomer", but he's worked on various British movies in the past, including Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.) It's this week's Robert de Niro movie (is it my imagination, or is he in just about every film that gets released these days? - has he been cloned?) and is directed (surprisingly) by Michael Caton-Jones.

The score is not without merit, though its relatively brief running time is hampered by being divided into so many disparate, short cues. There are about 27 minutes of score, divided into no fewer than 17 tracks. There is some attractive string work, chilled electric guitar music ("Joey Leaves Gina"), some Goldsmithian action licks ("Reg Gets Killed").

It never really meshes together into much of a coherent whole: a minute of one idea, a minute of a completely different one, a minute of yet another - none to be repeated later in the score. The best bits are surely those featuring slightly stronger melodies (a whole score like "Vince on the Street" would be a godsend). The rest works, I'm sure, very well in the film (the lullaby-type idea is very effective) but doesn't make for the best of albums.

It's strange though that the album is released at all; coming not from a "name" film composer nor the type of film that usually gets much of a hope of a score album. There are a couple of (original) songs, pretty poor on the whole, and the score features enough quality to make it worth considering.

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