April 13, 2009

  • Review: Heroes Music

    NBC-TV’s hit Heroes is now in its third season taking new twists and turns that appears to bringing back a few fans who left after last year’s more uneven and truncated (by a writer’s strike) second season.  The brief introductory title music (14 seconds as it is tracked here) works to immediately announce the beginning of the show well and holds nothing back to pick up from the previous episode and draw viewers into the opening sequence.  The first season was quite a rollercoaster ride as new characters appeared with new powers.  But a serial killer mystery wrapped up in manga clothing began to feel weak with a conceit that seemed to be a bit overplayed.  Still, many watched and were taken by a well-cast ensemble thrust into a series of enthralling events. 

    The music is by the team of Lisa Coleman and Wendy Melvoin (Snoops, Crossing Jordan).  The DVDs of the first season included a look into the way the two work towards creating the musical backdrop for the series.  In a lot of ways, what Coleman and Melvoin do is create a sort of musical design that begins with crafting particular melodic contours for each character.  What works well in the series is the way these various threads follow characters as they work out their particular story lines, run parallel to one another, or smash into one another.  This is what makes a lot of the mystery and tension work well.  Essentially, the two work with a variety of samples, guitars, and ethnic instruments to create the soundscapes to support the various storylines. 

    For this disc, the duo assembled music that was specific for each of the seven primary characters kicking off with music for Peter and running through music for Claire, Hiro, HRG, Mohinder, Sylar, and the seemingly multiple personality Jessica/Niki/Gina.  The minimalistic mallet shimmer that is connected with Hiro is perhaps one of the more motivically familiar segments of the score and one misses its recurrence once it passes with the track devoted to music for his character.  It is one of the strongest tracks.  The other most engaging track is that for Sylar.  The others are essentially variant ambient designs that fans will identify with the most.  The disc then concludes with music from two favorite sequences from season one in the climactic “Kirby Plaza” sequence, and with “Fire and Regeneration.”  Perhaps having a final track with an end title mix which closed the episodes would have helped make the disc close more satisfyingly musically.

    What one does discover though, is that while fans will perhaps enjoy having specific character’s music together, the music loses some of its interest as it appears here.  It comes across more as a diffuse, atmospheric, and occasionally fascinating new age album, though the sections that feature vocals by Shenkar lift the musical design up a notch emotionally.  With luck though, future releases, and one might assume that there will be some, the music that works so well in visual sequences will find a transfer as an intriguing listening experience as well.

    La-La Land Records provides just under an hour of music on this new release.  Track samples are available at their website:  http://www.lalalandrecords.com/Heroes.html.