MovieScore Media follows up its 2008's award-nominated Merlin album with a second volume featuring original music from the second series of the popular BBC fantasy show, currently attracting over 5 million viewers in the UK. The album features a carefully assembled selection from the second series composed by the Emmy-nominated Rob Lane (the composer of the first album as well as acclaimed scores such as John Adams, Elizabeth I, Jane Eyre, Longford and Tess of the d'Urbervilles) and Rohan Stevenson. Epic, exciting, romantic, spell-binding and magical music that takes the great standard of the first series of Merlin to an even higher level...

I have to admit that when I heard a second volume of music was being released for Merlin I was expecting it to be variations on a theme from the first volume. How wrong I was. While, obviously, there are going to be certain themes (like the show's main theme) incorporated into this soundtrack, what composer Rob Lane has done is once again deliver a whole truck load of beautiful themes and emotional tracks that sound more like a 'best of' collection for a big named Hollywood composer than the score to a fantasy TV show.

Once again, there are plenty of obvious influences from the world of Hollywood tucked away in this score - most notably the work of John Williams, which peppers this album from start to finish. But there are other influences. For example 'Finale has elements of Alan Silvestri's scores for Back to the Future, Predator and Beowulf; 'Lancelot's Heroism' reminded me of Hans Zimmer's score for The Da Vinci Code; and there was a faint hint of Jerry Goldsmith's score for Star Trek: The Motion Picture in 'Hiding Excalibur'.

Yet again Lane proves that he's one of the best composers working in the industry at present. If you are a fan of classically composed soundtracks then you'll love this release.

9

Darren Rea