Unfortunately, John Barry seems to have all but given up on film music (or, perhaps, film music has given up on him): despite being probably more capable than any other at capturing the unique dramatic requirements of any film, he has fallen out of favour and has scored but a handful of movies over the last five years. At the same time, he has signed a recording contract with Decca enabling him to write orchestral concept albums - the first, The Beyondness of Things, was released to great acclaim in 1998, and Eternal Echoes is its follow-up.

It's a long time coming, but the album has been dogged by production problems. Originally designed to be a combination of wistful orchestral instrumentals and vocals featuring well-known artists, it eventually became clear that the desired vocalists either weren't interested, or simply didn't have time to contribute to the album. At first the likes of Bono, Van Morrison and Sting were touted; when that idea fell through, Decca's favourite popular classical singers Russell Watson and Charlotte Church were asked, but weren't interested. So ultimately the album was re-born as a purely orchestral one.

Barry was inspired to write the music by the writings of the Irish author and philosopher John O'Donahue, and the spiritual nature of the O'Donahue's work - which explores the very nature of being - certainly shines through in Barry's music, though the pieces are more directly inspired by incidents in Barry's own life.

While The Beyondness of Things was a very romantic album (made up, it turned out, mostly of rejected film score material), Eternal Echoes is the most overtly sexy music Barry has written in over thirty years. Of course, he is now very much set in his ways compositionally, and there are no real surprises on offer, but there is a sense of melancholy and dream-like wonderment present in the music that hasn't really been heard on this scale from Barry before.

The opening cue, very much resembling the composer's score for Swept from the Sea, is gorgeous, and sets the pattern for what follows. The most popular tracks will, I'm sure, be the jazzy, brassy "Slow Day" and "Fred & Cyd" - superb, catchy pieces showcasing harmonica, trombone, trumpet and saxophone. The remaining music is more traditionally orchestral. Some of these, like "Lullabying", "Returning Home" and "First Steps" are worthy of particular attention.

Eternal Echoes does not possess the memorable melodic material of The Beyondness of Things and so may at first seem to be a disappointment, but there is a more consistent air to it and its deeply spiritual, emotional nature should mean it will ultimately prove to be very popular. It's a winning album from Barry.

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