Lakeshore Records release Jeff Russo's original score to Skydance Television's original series Altered Carbon, which is shown on Netflix. In addition to the original score, the album includes three songs including a cover of the Johnny Cash standard 'Ain’t No Grave' performed by actress Renée Elise Goldsberry. In addition Sune Rose Wagner performs White Zombie’s 'More Human Than Human'...

For those that haven't seen the show, Altered Carbon is an intriguing story of murder, love, sex, and betrayal, set more than 300 years in the future. Society has been transformed by new technology: consciousness can be digitized; human bodies are interchangeable; death is no longer permanent. Takeshi Kovacs is the lone surviving soldier in a group of elite interstellar warriors who were defeated in an uprising against the new world order. His mind was imprisoned – on ice – for centuries until Laurens Bancroft, an impossibly wealthy, long-lived man, offers Kovacs the chance to live again. In exchange, Kovacs has to solve a murder… that of Bancroft himself.

Jeff Russo's main theme is engaging and memorable, but the rest of the score is merely functional. There are fleeting moments of interest, but as a rule it's pretty dry listening on its own merits. It felt more like a very watered down version of Tommy Tallarico's excellent music for the Advent Rising game.

The album contains 11 tracks (28 min, 14 sec) and is surprisingly short for a full album. It's even shorter when you consider that three of the tracks are various artists tracks, which are pretty much instantly forgettable.

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Darren Rea