Turkish movie Conquest 1453 [Fetih 1453] examines the siege of Constantinople in 1453. Faruk Aksoy's film makes this piece of history accessible using a Hollywood-inspired cinematic style and a first-rate international orchestral score by Benjamin Wallfisch. Wallfisch's music is rich in colour and counterpoint, employing several strong themes and a rich palette where the orchestra forms the backbone and inventive electronic programming adds a contemporary feel to the score...

Once again, like his score for The Escapist, Benjamin Wallfisch's music for Conquest 1453 has elements which seem to have been inspired by music from the Call of Duty games. I definitely heard a few beats from Harry Gregson Williams's score for Call of Duty IV, but there seemed to be more that were similar in style to Hans Zimmer/Lorne Balfe's work on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

In addition I detected a hint of other possible inspirations. 'Basilica' brought to mind Zimmer's work on The Da Vinci Code (2006); 'Era and Hassan' reminded me of David Mansfield's score for The Sicilian (1987); 'War Drums' is an obvious homage to Brad Fiedel's work on Terminator 2 (1991); 'Mehmet's War' felt very much like Alan Silvestri's music for Predator (1987); and 'End Game' mixes elements of Silvestri's music from the Back to Future trilogy and Gustav Holst's The Planets.

Of all the tracks on this album it's hard to pick a stand out track, but I really loved the theme that was at the heart of 'Pulling the Ships'.

This album has 32 beautiful tracks, with a running time of 1 hr, 12 min, 28 sec. It's big, it's bold and it's incredibly beautiful. If you enjoy epic, emotional scores, then you'll love Conquest 1453.

10

Darren Rea