A look at David Arnold's filmography reveals that his career has taken a slightly odd path. Starting with one epic after another, all requiring massive orchestral scores, the new millennium has seen him score six movies so far: Shaft, Baby Boy, The Musketeer, Zoolander, Changing Lanes and now Enough. With only one exception, this has marked a total change of direction for Arnold. While these scores are not as enjoyable as his previous work, I think it was an important step for Arnold to take - he couldn't rely on Roland Emmerich and James Bond to keep his career going forever - but I must admit that I wouldn't mind a sniff of the old Arnold again now.

Enough is a dark-as-night psychological thriller directed by Michael Apted (who's roster of composers is most impressive: as well as Arnold, he's worked with James Horner, John Barry, Maurice Jarre, Mark Isham, Danny Elfman - not bad going). Arnold's score is, I guess, what you might expect for such a movie: dark, largely themeless, low-key, murmuring, atmospheric. There is very little melody to satisfy the listener: a brief guitar motif crops up from time to time and "A New Leaf" and "Slim and Joe" offer a moment or two of light relief, but otherwise it can be very hard going. When the music does burst to life, such as in the middle of "Get Out of the House", it doesn't tend to be for very long, and it's still quite dark and impenetrative.

This is one of those scores that would never have been released without the AFM's groundbreaking concession last year that allowed those scores likely to sell in low numbers (ie the majority of them) to be released with lower reuse payments. So that's why it could be released. But should it have been? Well, in my opinion, no. It's fine as film music and I honestly didn't think Arnold had it in him to write music like this, but it just doesn't work on its own terms. Impossible to criticise for that due to the nature of the film, but "impossible to criticise" does not mean "impossible not to recommend".

(A word about the album: I was most amused to see "This album does not contain any recordings by Jennifer Lopez" on the back cover and feel that warning should be placed on all albums on which Ms Lopez does not perform. In fact I am getting some labels printed so I can do this to those albums in my collection to which it applies.)

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