After the enormous success of Joe Dante's delightful family film Gremlins, a sequel was somewhat inevitable, so, six years later, along came The New Batch.  It was rather less successful in the US, though for my money was even better than the first one.  Perhaps the humour was a little too developed for it to appeal to quite the same audience, but it's a hilarious film for adults, with Dante managing to incorporate some wicked satire and parodies of other beloved movies, and almost Airplane-like silliness at times.  It's also notable as the first film to feature a speaking part for noted actor Jerrald K. Goldsmith, a role now revered the world over as one of the greatest ever seen on-screen.

The actor also worked his day job on the movie and - as Goldsmith has always tended to with sequels - he wrote a rather different score from the first Gremlins.  Several of the familiar themes from the first movie are discarded and we get several new ones, but the biggest change comes in the performing ensemble.  The synth-dominated sections of the first score are gone and this time we get virtually exclusively orchestral music, though with drum machines backing many of the action tracks.

"Just You Wait" opens the album with another lovely fanfare and then moves into some funky Chinatown music.  The first new theme - a pretty minor one, but still great fun - crops up in "Cute", which also features the first rendition in the score of the sweet Gizmo Theme.  The best cue is "Pot Luck", a wonderfully driving and exciting - and very silly - bit of action music, with the major new theme giving Malcolm McNab's trumpet a full work out.  It's amazing really that a film composer would pour so much effort into creating such a silly piece of music, but the results are such that it was certainly worthwile.  Goldsmith parodies his own Rambo style in "Keep it Quiet" (and in the film, a bit of the most machismo action music from Rambo II is actually tracked in as Gizmo goes off in full vigilante Rambo style, complete with the costume and all).

The overriding impression one gets from the album is that Goldsmith had a whale of a time writing this score.  It's energetic, exciting, infectious and above all, fun.  The end credit suite ("Gremlin Credits") is simply wonderful, combining the new theme, the classic Gremlins Rag and Gizmo's Theme in a piece as funky as Goldsmith's ever written.  I'm not sure you can go far wrong with this one.

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