I was possibly one of the only people in the world who found The Ghost and the Darkness to be a great movie.  A gloriously old-fashioned adventure romp about a pair of lions going on the rampage in colonial South Africa, it featured strong performances from Val Kilmer and Michael Douglas and an intelligent script by the great William Goldman.  Director Stephen Hopkins enlisted Jerry Goldsmith for the music, and a wise move it was.

The only slight misfire about the score is, ironically, the celebrated main theme, in which Goldsmith's attempt to combine the musical ethos of three cultures (Irish, English and African) comes off as a slightly cliched effort, though the "English" horn theme which dominates the middle section is excellent.  Elsewhere this contains some of the composer's most inspired action writing of the late 90s as well as a couple of other excellent themes.  The first, a romantic one, comes in "The Bridge", in which it vies for attention with the English theme.  The first action music comes in the thunderous, deliriously-exciting "Lions Attack", in which a brief but memorable motif is used to represent the lions and live percussion and sampled African voices add a propulsive and enveloping texture.

Elsewhere, apart from the action music (which is plentiful enough - "Starling's Death" is another highlight), Goldsmith goes for an almost Maurice Jarre-like celebration of the majesty and wonder of the location.  Tracks like "First Time" and "Welcome to Tsavo" are inspiring and are obviously written by a composer who was himself particularly inspired on this occasion.  While he has always written completely professional scores for even the lousiest films, it's obvious when Goldsmith is really inspired by something and The Ghost and the Darkness certainly fits into that category.

The 40 minutes of Goldsmith's score on this album make for one of the most satisfying listening experiences from him during that period and the score is certainly one of his most popular of recent years.  After the score are five songs performed by The Worldbeaters, featuring famed vocalist Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, which are fine if you like that sort of thing, and refreshingly distant from the cliched Lebo M sound that is usually found in films like this these days.

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