Varèse Sarabande release Fernando Velázquez's score for Pride + Prejudice + Zombies. A zombie outbreak has fallen upon the land in Jane Austen’s classic tale of the tangled relationships between lovers from different social classes in 19th century England. Feisty heroine Elizabeth Bennet is a master of martial arts and weaponry and the handsome Mr. Darcy is a fierce zombie killer, yet the epitome of upper class prejudice. As the zombie outbreak intensifies, they must swallow their pride and join forces on the blood-soaked battlefield...

Fernando Velázquez's score for Pride + Prejudice + Zombies wasn't what I was expecting. Given the movie's plot I was anticipating a nice balance of action/adventure style themes coupled with plenty of classical, romantic, melancholic tracks. While there are a handful of these they are a little more restrained than I was hoping for. This was even more of a surprise considering that this is from the composer who scored Hercules and Sexykiller.

The album opens with 'Darcy' an eerie track that starts well, but you soon realise doesn't actually go anywhere. And this seems to be the problem with the majority of the music here.

The score contains 22 tracks (53 min, 25 sec) and normally, with albums like this, I sweep at least a couple of tracks over to a playlist I'm compiled of interesting themes. In this instance, I couldn't find a single track I wanted to add to the playlist. It's not that the music is dull or particularly bad, it's just that the themes stop before they get started. So, we either have impressive starts that fizzle out, or by-the-numbers tracks that end on a beautiful note.

Take 'The Letter - Siege of London' at the 2 minute mark it starts to build to a beautiful theme. And then, just as it's starting to get going, Velázquez's moves on.

In, 'Orphan Attack', there's a promising segment right at the end of the track which just fizzles out. This is also the case with 'Rosings Park', which starts promisingly for a classical piece, but soon reverts back to formulaic music. When I got to 'Darcy Is Saved' I thought I'd finally found a track that stood out. There's a brief segment that's incredibly beautiful, but then it just goes back to being middle-of-the-road.

Finally, we get to the last track 'After The Explosion', and the last half is certainly this album's finest piece of music. But even that ends a little clumsily.

It's such a shame, because this soundtrack could have been so much more. This is a functional score and, sadly, nothing more.

6

Darren Rea