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"Today is the day. My soundtrack album for #TheLordOfTheRings #TheRingsOfPower is available NOW on all digital platforms. Much more will be revealed, and released, in the coming weeks and months. This massive 2+ hour musical experience is just the start of a journey…"
Bear McCreary just posted this on his social media. So I guess here's hoping for upcoming CD releases.
It either suggest some "inspired by" albums (withholding judgement, but I don't think he'd screw it up too much) or a much more comprehensive release down the line. Either is good with me.
Having given the rest of the album a listen earlier, I very much enjoyed it. Unlike the Star Wars producers, the LOTR:ROP producers clearly felt entirely happy letting Bear McCreary use Shore's style and material as a starting point and writing his own thing which carries the spirit of Shore's music, particularly the mix of epic and intimate, with a couple of charming folksy parts. OK, the themes aren't quite as memorable as Shore's (but then again, when the original films came out, lots of people bitched that Shore's themes weren't that great... shrug) but I easily spotted the main Galadriel theme when it appeared and I'm sure the rest will reveal themselves further. Shore's main theme is, a bit like with JW's Obi-Wan or Solo themes, clearly built on the style used for the original films, if not necessarily going to go down as the best thing he ever wrote! Still, at least McCreary's music easily comes from the same sound world as Shore, unlike Obi-Wan.
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I love it! But don't forget Foundation, Thierry. 
I just can't hear Galadriel's theme without hearing Gaal's Theme from that. Love them both, though.
Yavar
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This score is probably the best fantasy television score since Ramin Djawadi's score for Game of Thrones.
Definitely think it's way better than Djawadi's music for GOT, which was a bit heavy with the Zimmerisms. The best parts of that were when Djawadi played the more subdued music.
So far this music from McCreary sounds pretty good - I'll have to hear it in the context of the show. There are a few things that sound very templatized - that cue "Cavalry" has continual woodwind runs that sound like adaptive music made for videogames where the music is generatively-built and "transitions" are literally pulled from a library of sounds that are all the same (woodwind runs at 0:18, 0:25, 1:19, 2:35, 3:00, 3:03, 3:17, 3:32). The rhythms are a bit generic as well. McCreary's action music could benefit from some thinning of the orchestration so it's not so heavy. I think action is his weakest area and he sort of covers it up with changing sections and rhythms to keep it seeming interesting, but it ultimately lacks an actual core drive or body to it.
When his music gets quiet though, he excels. 3:40-onwards in that cue "Cavalry" is very effective and focused. "Water and Flame" generally fares better and characteristically does best in its quiet moments, like 0:33 - 1:03 - a seemingly innocuous section of 30 second that is FILLED with great ideas.
This gets back to that idea of "television writing" and how McCreary has the skills but he needs to be given more time and better direction to pull him out of the time-pressure-driven habits of conventional writing. Writing good action music is difficult, but it's also the music that you can get away with being more generic since it's just a lot of stuff happening and the suits are usually focused on the visual action itself and just want to know the music is "there".
Very interested to explore the rest of the music and see if there are better examples of his action music from the show.
But overall a very good work of his own with the occasional nod towards Shore here and there.
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