Lakeshore Records release Adam Taylor's score from the HULU TV series The Handmaid's Tale. Adapted from the classic novel by Margaret Atwood, show explores life in the dystopia of Gilead, a totalitarian society in what was formerly the United States. Facing environmental disasters and a plunging birthrate, Gilead is ruled by a twisted fundamentalist regime that treats women as property of the state. As one of the few remaining fertile women, Offred is a Handmaid in the Commander’s household, one of the caste of women forced into sexual servitude as a last desperate attempt to repopulate a devastated world. In this terrifying society where one wrong word could end her life Offred navigates between Commanders, their cruel Wives, domestic Marthas and her fellow Handmaids – where anyone could be a spy for Gilead – with one goal: to survive and find the daughter that was taken from her...

Adam Taylor's music for The Handmaid's Tale is atmospheric and eerie, but there's very little here in the way of substance. For the show it's composed for it's perfect. But as a standalone album to listen to on its own merits, it doesn't work quite so well. The collection contains 17 tracks (37 min, 19 sec).

The main problem is there's nothing really to get your teeth into, with the possible exception of 'Offred Explores Her Room' and 'Moira and June Escape', but even these tracks would be ignored in a score with a little more life in them.

It could probably have done without the occasional line of dialogue from the show, but if you're a fan of dark, broody atmospheric music scores you'll probably enjoy what Taylor delivers here.

5

Darren Rea