Sadly, much worse album than a S1. And those VA songs are horrible, especially this heavy metal crap.
TROLL TURNS FOE FLESH TO MEEEEAT
With respect he is allowed to give his opinion. He is also right about the heavy metal song, it is awful and really has no place in any works of Tolkien. McCreary really dropped the ball with that cue.
Wasn't season 1 (OST & Box) released by Mondo? Season 2 is by Mutant. Not sure if that changes the chances of a season 2 box or if there is if it'll even match season 1 if there is one.
I'm a HUGE fan of S1 2CDs album, it's THE greatest TV-score of a decade.
BUT
Album from S2 is simply much weaker, less orchestral, less thematic music that disappoints. And these songs (way too many of them!) sound like they're from some poor role-playing PC game...
Wasn't season 1 (OST & Box) released by Mondo? Season 2 is by Mutant. Not sure if that changes the chances of a season 2 box or if there is if it'll even match season 1 if there is one.
I read that Mutant was founded by refugees from Mondo, and that they took their industry contacts with them. I don't remember the source, but it does explain why Dune 1 and RoP S1 were on Mondo but Dune 2 and RoP S2 moved to Mutant.
The episodic albums for the first three episodes will be available on Thursday August 29th (the same day the first 3 episodes come out).
It's already Thursday in Australia and New Zealand, so the pages are live on qobuz there if you want to hear samples:
Episode One: Eleven Kings Under The Sky 1 Dawn of the Second Age (12:55) 2 The Last Hope for All Middle-earth (3:24) 3 Bow or Bleed (3:18) 4 Trees of Stone (3:21) 5 Ci´rdan (7:35) 6 Warning in the Words (2:34) 7 To Serve the Lord of Mordor (2:01) 8 Three Rings for the Elven Kings (feat Benjamin Walker) (6:44) 9 The Rings of Power-Season One Overture (Bonus Track) (3:40)
Episode Two: Where The Stars Are Strange 1 Catastrophe at Khazad-du^m 2:14 2 Glimpses of the Unseen World 5:32 3 Caras Gaer 4:37 4 The Gaudrim 3:43 5 Despair Under the Mountain 4:41 6 Before Darkness Blinds Us All 8:05 7 My Name Is Not Halbrand 9:34 8 Invitation to Eregion 1:39 Total length: 00:40:05
Episode Three: The Easgle and the Sceptre 1 Shelob’s Nest (4:50) 2 Nu´meno´rean Grief (4:19) 3 Enter Damrod (feat Jens Kidman) (0:57) 4 Mithril for Rings (4:14) 5 The Road to Pelargir (3:52) 6 Funeral Pyre and Reconciliation (feat Raya Yarbrough) (4:31) 7 Isildur and Estrid (3:04) 8 The Wild Men (2:02) 9 The Great Eagle and the Forging (6:46) 10 The Rings of Power – Title Announcement Trailer (Bonus Track) (1:05) 11 The Rings of Power – Season Two Overture (Bonus Track) (1:26) 12 The Rings of Power – London Premiere Season One Fanfare (Bonus Track) (4:18)
The bonus tracks being included is really cool! I wonder why they're being spread across the volumes like this, though.
My most wanted piece of unreleased original season 1 trailer music is this:
I don't know if Bear McCreary even had any involvement or whether it was just someone else adapting Plan 9's song. I do really like the cheerful version of "Wandering Day" in the series proper, and I appreciated Bear McCreary including it on the albums of his own music. But my introduction to the melody was in this teaser trailer, and I remember being rather disappointed that we never got this darker adaptation within the series itself. I find this arrangement of it far more haunting and memorable. I love the orchestral tag adapting it at the end of the teaser, too. Would love to have this trailer score... or better yet, a full version of the song in this version, if more was recorded and then just cut down for trailer use.
Here's the chronological order of the season 2 album so far
Concert Arrangements 01 Old Tom Bombadil (3:10) - feat. Rufus Wainwright 02 Rhun (2:35) - feat. The Mystery of the Bulgarian Voices 03 Concerning Stoors (3:32) 04 Golden Leaves (3:18) - feat. Benjamin Walker 08 Eregion (3:42) 12 Estrid (3:12) 19 The Last Ballad of Damrod (3:17) - feat. Jens Kidman
Episode 1 - Elven Kings Under the Sky 05 Cirdan's Perfection (6:30) [0:00-4:53]
Episode 2 - Where the Stars are Strange 06 Stone Singers (1:15) - feat. Sophia Nomvete 07 Sandstorm at the Well (3:46) 09 Emissary at the Forge (6:36) [0:00-5:31]
Episode 3 - The Eagle and the Sceptre 10 Shelob (1:48) 11 The Pyre (2:28) - feat. Raya Yarbrough 13 The Great Eagle (2:57) 05 Cirdan's Perfection (6:30) [4:53-end]
TBD 09 Emissary at the Forge (6:36) [5:31-end] 14 The River-daughter (1:09) - feat. Raya Yarbrough 15 Barrow-wights (2:24) 16 Forgiveness Takes an Age (2:40) 17 Candles on the Tide (3:40) - feat. Clydene Jackson 18 Army of Orcs (4:11) 20 Battle for Eregion (11:32) 21 Durin's Bane (8:37) 22 Last Temptation (7:11) 23 The Staff (4:17) 24 Old Tom Bombadil Reprise (2:19) - feat. Rory Kinnear and Daniel Weyman 25 The Sun Yet Shines (4:34)
I have listened to the score for Episode One: Eleven Kings Under The Sky twice now and there's some good stuff there, but for me the highlight is the bonus track: The Rings of Power-Season One Overture. It is great.
The way "This Wandering Day" gets turned into orchestral underscore in "Warning in the Words" was a very nice surprise, and works great that way! The embryonic version of the Rhun theme that appears after is really cool - I love the way that theme explodes into huge statements in "Caras Gaer" and "The Gaudrim" on the next album
It's interesting how much shorter the episode albums are compared to season 1. Feel like the show is much more carefully spotted in general. Maybe this is how Bear wrote the entire score without breaking his back this time around.
Yes, people who have watched the episodes have confirmed that the episodes are more sparesely spotted, so that's why the episode albums are shorter. That is not a lot of unreleased music from the episodes.
Yes, people who have watched the episodes have confirmed that the episodes are more sparesely spotted, so that's why the episode albums are shorter. That is not a lot of unreleased music from the episodes.
I watched the first episode of season two (hoping I'd see something to like in it besides the score… alas not), and it certainly didn't feel sparsely spotted to me.
