Emmy Award winning Spanish composer Javier Navarrete has composed an elegant and uplifting score to Neil Jordan’s latest film Byzantium. Navarrete is perhaps best known for fantasy and horror genre movies Wrath of the Titans, Pan’s Labyrinth, The Devil’s Backbone and Mirrors...

Lurking in my collection of scores are two of Javier Navarrete's: Pan's Labyrinth and Inkheart (believe it or not). These are scores I picked up after being impressed with the music while I was watching the movie. I still dig them out from time to time and always enjoy them. Sadly Byzantium won't be being added to his list of soundtracks that I enjoy.

It's not that it's a bad score, far from it. It's just that it's mainly made up of atmospheric, ambient filler material that just sits in the background being functional.

There were only really a handful of tracks that caught my attention - where Navarrete was allowed a little freedom to produce some beautiful segments of music. These included the impressive piano based 'My Mother'; 'Whore'; 'My Mother Saw Her Chance'; and while not a great track, the ending to 'Always' is a beautiful way to round off the album.

The album contains 27 tracks and lasts for 1 hr, 03 min, 27 sec. While I'm sure this works well in the movie, when listened to in isolation it's a little disappointing.

5

Darren Rea