Howe Records release Howard Shore's original score to Rosewater. The film follows the Tehran-born Bahari, a 42-year-old broadcast journalist with Canadian citizenship living in London. In June 2009, Bahari returned to Iran to interview Mir-Hossein Mousavi, who was the prime challenger to controversial incumbent president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. As Moussavi’s supporters rose up to protest Ahmadinejad’s victory declaration hours before the polls closed on election day, Bahari endured great personal risk by submitting camera footage of the unfolding street riots to the BBC. Bahari was soon arrested by Revolutionary Guard police, led by a man he nicknamed "Rosewater" for his fragrant cologne, who proceeded to torture and interrogate the journalist over the next 118 days..

On the first listen through of Howard Shore's score for Rosewater I couldn't help thinking how much the music felt like tracks that hadn't made the grade for his work on the Hobbit / Lord of the Rings movies. There was also a touch of Hans Zimmer sprinkled liberally throughout this album. I'm sure for the film's scenes it works wonderfully, but it's a rather strange listening experience when taken on its own merits.

I have to admit that, whilst I did listen to it quite a lot over the period of a week, there wasn't that much that actually caught my attention. This is another album that is fine, but nothing to get to excited about. In fact, of this album's 16 tracks (42 min, 15 sec) the only track that stood out (in a good way) was 'Released'.

This is a pretty run-of-the-mill offering from Shore, and probably one that will only be enjoyed by fans of the film.

6

Darren Rea