A review by JAMES SOUTHALL

A surprisingly tense and entertaining thriller based on the true story of a particularly ferocious series of storms all colliding on a hapless boat off the New England coast, captained by no less a figure than George Clooney (though I don't think he was the captain in real life).  Director Wolfgang Peterson enlisted James Horner, still to an extent in his "honeymoon period" following Titanic, for his first return to the water.  Peterson has never seemed like he has much of a clue when it comes to music, hiring very odd composers for some of his projects and then rejecting their scores, but this is one of the rare occasions where he got it right first time.  Both in the film and on the album, the music's only real problem is that it just goes on and on for too long, but I suppose that's the way of the modern film score.

The score starts off very well with "Coming Home from the Sea", opening and closing with a very folksy, gentle sound featuring acoustic guitar solos, but in the middle turning into a bright, exciting piece of music which underscores the joyful part of being at sea.  Its thrilling trumpet solo sees Horner on top form.  This precedes the score's weakest section, a couple of cues which come in the part of the film where everyone's just waiting for something to happen, and such it is with the score as well.  They heavily feature two themes which are simple but effective but suffer through overuse in this section.  (You may be thinking that two cues aren't that many, but nearly every track on the album is around ten minutes long.)

Then, the action begins and it's great stuff.  "To the Flemish Cap" is a thrilling piece; "The Decision to Turn Around", even moreso, with Horner perfectly capturing the anguish and drama of the occasion, focusing as usual on the emotions of the characters, and doing so very well.  The cue features the strongest and most impressive dissonant music from the composer in a very long time and is welcome indeed.  "Small Victories" is flush with heroism, never losing the dramatic tension, and is yet another very impressive track, with just the briefest hints of the composer returning to his dynamic action music style he favoured in the early years of his career.  The cue also features a clever device which sees Horner allow his string section to make the music rise and fall like the ocean, sometimes swelling up to desperate levels, then fading back.  It sounds simple, but it works tremendously.

"Coast Guard Rescue" continues the action music, even featuring a few uses of Horner's patented four-note motif; that aside, it features some genuinely fresh and genuinely ferocious music: wonderful stuff.  "Rogue Wave" starts off like the calm after the storm, with a gentle performance of the main theme, but quickly shows that something else is about to go wrong with tension-building stuff and finally another explosion of action.  "There's No Goodbye... Only Love" has the corniest track title ever created, but it's the music that counts, and it's a welcome return to the folksy atmosphere of the first track, bringing a nice sense of closure to the score.  After that is a song, "Yours Forever", based on Horner's themes and sung by John Mellencamp, which works well.  The score goes on too long (trimming a couple of the earlier tracks would make it a far stronger album) but that can't disguise the fact that it's one of Horner's strongest of the recent past, and a welcome return to the more direct style he favoured during the 1980s.  Highly recommended.

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Tracks

1. Coming Home from the Sea (9:25)
2. The Fog's Just Lifting... (4:11)
3. Let's Go, Boys (8:54)
4. To the Flemish Cap (7:17)
5. The Decision to Turn Around (9:20)
6. Small Victories (8:31)
7. Coast Guard Rescue (9:47)
8. Rogue Wave (10:03)
9. There's No Goodbye... Only Love (7:33)
10. Yours Forever John Mellencamp (4:02)