From Hell is a movie about Jack the Ripper directed by the Hughes Brothers (John and Emlyn), starring Johnny Depp and Heather Graham. There was much hype and anticipation surrounding its release, and also that of its score, composed by the prolific Trevor Jones. Jones often pleases fans with his sweeping themes but aside from that his music can take on the appearance of being "filler" music. From Hell slips completely into the same category.

The best track, as on so many of Jones's albums, is the first one, "In Memoriam". His theme is sweeping and memorable, evoking exactly the period of the movie and the dark London streets it portrays. For the second half of the cue, we are given the "treat" of some synthesised percussion, followed by the most blatant temp-track lift in a while, this time from Wojciech Kilar's score for Coppola's Dracula. Thereafter it is difficult to get especially excited by the score, which seems to go along probably offering ample support for the movie's images but not doing much for the album listener. There are exceptions - "Death Coach", for example, features some great action music.

The album features two songs, "The Nobodies", performed by Marilyn Manson, and the bizarre "Bow Belle (Absinthium)". The less said about the former, the better - totally at odds with Jones's music, hideous to hear but no doubt a passport to much wider album sales - and the latter is truly bizarre. It's deliberately recorded to sound like an ancient wax cylinder recording, though is an original piece by Jones. Lyrics are credited to Victoria Seale (Jones's personal assistant) but because of the way the song is recorded, it's impossible to hear any of them. Again it is totally at odds with the rest of the score, but this time will most assuredly not prove to be a passport to wider album sales, so its inclusion seems most odd.

It's difficult to know whether to recommend the album or not - at its best it really is superb, but much of the album is just really, really dull. I am always loathe to do so, but again I must criticise the album for just being far too long. Long albums are fine for Spartacus or Star Wars, but there simply aren't very many film scores interesting enough to warrant such long albums.

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