A review by JAMES SOUTHALL

For me it's a case of the emperor's new clothes, but nevertheless M. Night Shyamalan has been extremely successful in his short directing career so far, taking in The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable and Signs.  For all of those movies, James Newton Howard wrote the music (and with the exception of the overrated Signs, the music ended up entirely outclassing the movies themselves) and now he is back for a fourth collaboration with the director, on The Village, in which Joaquin Phoenix and a band of villagers in Pennsylvania have to battle a string of evil creatures who live in nearby woods (yes, well).

Howard's music is outstanding, unquestionably one of his finest scores.  Its brilliance is in how surprising it is: for the most part, Howard eschews the crash-bang-wallop sensibilities by which this type of score is usually dogged and instead focuses on small-scale, character-driven pieces, many of which are quite haunting.  The score is dominated from start to end by a series of exquisite violin solos (performed by Hilary Hahn).  "What Are You Asking Me?" is splendid, with an almost folksy feel representing the village.  Even when the music does take a louder turn, Howard manages to do it with a touch of class.  "Those We Don't Speak Of" (grammatical purists will just have passed out) opens (literally) with a bang, but whereas lesser composers are content to throw in the percussion and brass stings among ambient noise, Howard fleshes things out and actually creates real music.  "Will You Help Me?" is simply outstanding, gut-wrenchingly beautiful music, and there are plenty of other examples besides, with "The Gravel Road" being of particular note, the violin solos being beautifully intertwined with piano.

In the last few cues, the music - which certainly has darker moments throughout - becomes even darker and more brooding.  "The Forbidden Line" is a piece of pure horror music; the lengthy "The Vote" is a respite, as it spends time developing many ideas from earlier in the score; but things hot up again with the score's busiest piece, "It Is Not Real", in which Howard introduces a (presumably synthesised) sound like a ram's horn which is slightly disconcertingly similar to one Jerry Goldsmith used in Timeline, though here it is part of something considerably more brutal and uncompromising.  The album ends with the off-kilter, disconcerting "The Shed Not to be Used".  

The Village is a fine score, one of the best dramatic scores of the year so far.  Howard displays a level of maturity and assurance which is always likely to produce good music and this fourth score for Shyamalan is the best of the lot.

Tracks

1. Noah Visits (2:35)
2. What Are You Asking Me? (6:01)
3. The Bad Colour (3:57)
4. Those we Don't Speak Of (3:59)
5. Will You Help Me? (2:34)
6. I Cannot See His Colour (1:31)
7. Rituals (2:01)
8. The Gravel Road (4:31)
9. Race to Resting Rock (1:16)
10. The Forbidden Line (2:17)
11. The Vote (6:03)
12. It Is Not Real (3:36)
13. The Shed Not to be Used (2:03)