Director Sam Mendes is hardly predictable in his choice of films.  He followed his first, the brilliant social satire American Beauty, with the slightly disappointing period gangster piece Road to Perdition; third up is Jarhead, a film notionally following a soldier in the first Gulf War, though really it is a film about the psychological effects of any war.  (It seems like the sort of thing Terrence Malick might make a film about, given a decade or two.)  Mendes has again turned to composer Thomas Newman for the score; American Beauty has turned out to be one of the most influential pieces of film music of the 1990s, and Road to Perdition had a highly-impressive score as well, so their latest collaboration was awaited with much enthusiasm.

Having said that, the very dark nature of the film seemed to dictate that Jarhead would be one of Newman's gritty, more atmospheric works, and indeed any faint glimmer of hope that he might have written some sort of elegiac portrait of conflict are dashed rather quickly with the heavy-going, urban electric guitars of the opening track of the album, "Welcome to the Suck".  After that, the score is mostly a series of brief vignettes, rarely melodic, based as usual on repeated phrases with unusual instrumental soloists piling gradually on.  The hula guitars of "Unsick Most Ricky-Tick" are unexpected but nice; the funky rhythms of "Raining Oil" particularly catchy; the wonderfully-entitled "Dickskinner" features a perversely upbeat, cool little theme; and then there are several cues which see the composer bringing things together in highly-unusual ways to create an edgy, distinctly uncomfortable atmosphere.

A string orchestra joins in with a few tracks, though there are none of the composer's memorable themes here.  The score is dominated by the small "band" of frequent Newman collaborators.  Reading the list of instrumental solos in a Newman score is always a great experience, and Jarhead is no different.  I find it somehow beautifully poetic to read that George Doering's contributions include "esraj, reverse hammer dulcimer, bass gut-string guitar, gretsch with univibe, tromba marina, Vietnamese banjo, bowed cumbus"; Rick Cox's include "bowed swirls, distant waves, processed xaphoons, radio skips, whistle flutes, riverhead loops, desolate composite"; and Michael Fisher's, "dayre, daf, riq, wave drum, crotales, processed wands, Peter Engelhart metal sculptures, doumbek, dohalla, Scottish snare drums, cajon".  My favourite of all of those has to be Peter Engelhart metal sculptures; I don't know who Peter Engelhart is, but somehow I doubt that when he was making his metal sculptures he envisaged them ending up being "played" as part of the score for a film set it Kuwait (or any other part of the Middle East).

The album plays very well and is a somewhat hypnotic experience, with (as is frequently the case on Newman's scores like this) the whole seemingly more than the sum of the parts.  As usual, the score is augmented by a few songs, including classics from Bobby McFerrin and T-Rex, and a new one from Public Enemy which earns the album a "parental advisory" label, meaning that the legions of 6-year-olds who were no doubt queuing up to buy the score for Jarhead might be put off.  It's nowhere near as striking as Newman's other scores for Mendes, but even so remains a recommended purchase for fans of the composer.