Milan Records releases Music From the Netflix film Fear Street Part 2: 1978 – the second in a trilogy of horror stories set across three time periods by composers Marco Beltrami and Brandon Roberts. The film, directed by Leigh Janiak and based on R.L. Stine’s best-selling horror books follows a group of teenagers who discover the terrifying events which have plagued their town of Shadyside for 300 years may be connected. For the score Beltrami this time gets to channel the scores of Jerry Goldsmith with his use of woodwinds and percussion in the orchestra. He has scored many films, including 3:10 to Yuma, The Hurt Locker, Logan, Terminator 3, I Robot, A Good Day to Die Hard, World War Z, and Venom: Let There Be Carnage. Other projects include Guillermo del Toro’s Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, and the latest series of The Twilight Zone for TV, and Fortnite for the hit video game. Brandon Roberts has scored for, among others, Free Solo, A Quiet Place (Parts 1 & 2), The Woman in Black, and Logan. He has also composed for the TV shows Battlestar Galactica, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, and V, among others. Fear Street Part 2 is available for download...

Right from the off this is a much more exciting soundtrack than Part 1. It opens with a nice piano piece, before hinting at a threat with discordant strings. The chase sequences are inventive, with a galloping pace of percussion and strings. These are bettered by 'Sisters', which is an extraordinarily unusual and therefore original sequence. There is semi-methodical clomping, joined by a metallic scraping, urgent strings and a chanting of what could be Latin. It ends with a plaintive reverbed female voice and simple piano. Woodwind also plays a large part in this collection. 'Tommy Turns' is a stand-out favourite, coming across like a frantic and chaotic scene of devilry and black magic – complete with eerie chants. 'Heart of Darkness' is suitably creepy, too, and not far behind it. There really is something for everyone here. 'Finding the Diary' is a good example of a nervy and tentative creeping. It’s very edgy. There are deep and grand themes as well, evidenced by 'Camper Chum'.

With twenty tracks presented for our listening pleasure, there is a good eclectic mix of moods and styles on offer here. 'Chop Chop' has a handful of these contrasting emotional triggers incorporated in one track. Many of the later titles are alternately balanced between savage threatening music as you would want to expect in a horror movie, and mellow, sad and contemplative interludes. This proves important to the conglomerate, because once you’ve ramped-up the tension and produced the "scare" where do you go from there? It’s necessary to calm the atmosphere so that the suspense can be built-up again. A sense of false security. Beltrami and Roberts are no slouches; here they prove their credentials with a very impressive score.

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Ty Power