CD Review: The Devil's Rejects
By Steven A. Kennedy
The Devil's Rejects *** 1/2
TYLER BATES
La-La Land 1035
24 tracks - 59:30
Tyler Bates has had a steady career scoring low-budget films as well as
some higher profile comedies. He toured with his band Pet and opened
for a number of musical acts, and he has played guitar for the Beastie
Boys and Vas -- but all of this has taken a back seat after his
decision to focus on film scoring. The
Devil's Rejects is Rob Zombie's second feature film. The Firefly
family, from 2003's House of 1000
Corpses, returns to bring their own fingerprint to an
out-of-control road movie that takes The
Texas Chainsaw Massacre as its possible "inspiration." The film
appeared at Cannes this year with a planned late-July release. Zombie
chose a variety of 1970s rock to accompany his picture, using Bates
score intermittently. La-La Land presents here what must be most of the
original score, used and unused, written for the film.
The opening track is an interesting mix of creepy atmospheric sounds
and a ghostly vocal over static harmony. It's similar to Marco
Beltrami's approach in genre scores, but with less interest in thematic
writing. With ideas ranging from didgeridoo blats to densely packed
brass writing to simulated heartbeats, Bates throws in a bit of
everything right from the start. A maniacal percussion track follows,
presenting the other sound idea in the score. Bates' style of using
ambient ideas to create musical threads can still be heard even as this
track unfolds. As the disc continues, it's obvious that Bates' score
was used to pull action sequences up a notch. For lack of a better
analogy, there are times when the score sounds a bit like what would
happen if Batman had a bad drug trip. Or, in tracks like "Mama Pulls
the Trigger," it is a bit like hearing Scream on steroids. Is this
effective in a film like The Devil's
Rejects? Absolutely. Unlike many of the new breed of slasher and
horror genre scores, this one features many tracks that last longer
than a minute. This allows Bates to shape his music and build a scene
musically.
After being pummeled for almost 10 minutes, the smooth urban jazz of
"Ride the Horse" offers a brief respite from the mayhem. But it's only
a fluke in an otherwise demanding and visceral score. The Devil's Rejects is a hard album
to sit through, but it's not unrewarding.
Kudos to La-La Land for once again supporting new and rising talent by
releasing scores that otherwise would not see the light of day. Hip-O
will be releasing a disc of the songs from the film. The score is
available from La-La Land's website and select music
outlets. --
MailBag@filmscoremonthly.com
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