A review by JAMES SOUTHALL

A Sci-Fi Channel miniseries about strange goings on in the Bermuda Triangle, The Triangle has the distinction of being produced by Dean Devlin and Bryan Singer and having a cast including Sam Neill, Eric Stoltz and Lou Diamond Phillips, though its plot of a mega-rich businessman assembling a team of experts to find out why his ships have been disappearing in the mid-Atlantic seems rather tired to me and far too similar to numerous past projects to be of much interest.  Devlin writes in his liner notes to the album that the first and last choice to write the score was Joseph LoDuca, with whom he had previously worked on The Librarian, and indeed such is the praise Devlin bestows on LoDuca's music that listening to the CD for the first time, one might expect a real masterpiece.

Things don't start off badly, with the decent main title and especially the six-minute "Cigar Boat", which features some nice orchestral music and some very modern action music much in the style of John Powell, though without his panache.  Sadly, it's pretty much all downhill for the remaining 43 minutes thereafter, with only the occasional reprises of this action music holding much interest.  These are all just fine, but so similar to each other that even that becomes a little redundant after a while.  A nice touch is the sensitive, reflective (!) music heard in "Meeno in the Mirror" though it's frustratingly over almost as soon as it has begun.  Things finally pick up again in the rousing "It's Over" towards the end, complete with synth choir.

LoDuca is of course best-known for his Hercules and Xena scores, but anyone hoping for any orchestral music on that scale will be disappointed.  Admittedly, the most memorable music from those shows seemed to always be heavily-inspired by well-known film scores, but even so, it was rather more enjoyable than The Triangle.  Of course, this miniseries is a rather different beast from either of those shows so it's inevitable the music would be different, but it's just too bland and generic to make a particularly involving album, despite a few tracks being impressive enough on their own terms.  He's not a composer who is very well-represented on CD so I'm sure his fans will be delighted by the release, but otherwise I suspect the main market will be fans of the show who want the music as a reminder of it.

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Tracks

1. Triangle (2:03)
2. Three Ships (1:47)
3. Cigar Boat (6:00)
4. To the Edge (1:30)
5. Reality (5:14)
6. Where Are We? (5:19)
7. Meeno in the Mirror (1:28)
8. Flesh and Blood (1:18)
9. The Adventurer (!:27)
10. Unabridged (:47)
11. The Whalers (3:03)
12. Weist (1:47)
13. Methane Tanker (1:44)
14. Taking a Dive (4:38)
15. Dinner With Mom (1:19)
16. On the Edge (2:45)
17. Off Road (1:24)
18. Haloclines (1:57)
19. It's Over (2:39)
20. New Lives (2:40)
21. The Cross (2:05)