Until recently, Jerry Goldsmith's large collection of western scores has been largely unreleased on CD, with only four or five actually being available. Then, all of a sudden, the number available has more than doubled. Take a Hard Ride, an utterly dreadful 1975 movie starring Jim Brown and Lee Van Cleef, was one of the last films he scored in the genre, but in truth his score is among the best he wrote for it.

The main title, a wonderfully expansive piece, is my favourite Goldsmith western theme. It's heard throughout the score and will live long in the memory. Previously, the only way of hearing it was to get the SPFM Tribute CD, so it's great that it is now finally available to a larger audience. (My favourite arrangement of it here is in "A Long Walk", the final track.)

The director, Anthony M. Dawson (no, I'd never heard of him either) saw his film as some sort of Sergio Leone wannabe, and Goldsmith employed various Ennio Morricone mannerisms throughout: the weird electronic motif for Van Cleef's character, and the harmonica music, and the vaguely hallucinatory passages from time to time that are clearly designed to evoke memories of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly's stunning finale. There's also a load of very good action music, such as in "Fancy Footwork", "The Ambush" and "The Wagon", to go alongside the rich Americana and weird Morriconeisms.

Most of Goldsmith's western scores are wonderful, and Take a Hard Ride is clearly one of the best. This release features excellent sound, informative notes and (at last!) a decent cover on a Film Score Monthly release. If you were to only get one of FSM's Goldsmith western albums, I would recommend this one: it's just great!