Nominated for an Oscar, two Academy Awards and a BAFTA, Biutiful stars Javier Bardem as Uxbal, a man struggling to reconcile the past and present as he battles a terminal disease...

Argentinean composer Gustavo Santaolalla won an Oscar two years running for Brokeback Mountain (2006) and Babel (2007), but I have to admit that his score for Biutiful left me rather cold. While this score has its moments (like the beautiful piano solo that is at the centre of 'Elegiac') the majority of the tracks on this album are rather emotionless; technically brilliant, but didn't cause any strong feelings in me.

The majority of this score leans heavily on guitar and piano solos - something that, for me, feels like a rough composition awaiting an arranger to arrive and flesh it out for an orchestra. A few too many of the tracks just fizzle out or go nowhere, whilst others (like '…And it Mooves') feel like Santaolalla is just experimenting with sounds for another project.

For the movie I'm sure that this score adds much, but when listened to in isolation this is rather lacking in anything that will make you sit up and take notice.

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Darren Rea