Sony Music Masterworks releases the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack to Spider-Man: No Way Home, by composer Michael Giacchino. In the film, directed by Jon Watts and starring Tom Holland, Spider-Man’s secret identity is revealed, complicating his life and putting his family and friends in danger. When Peter Parker appeals to Doctor Strange to restore his secret a hole is torn in the fabric of existence, opening a gate way to the multiverse and allowing through any villains who have clashed with any Spider-Man. This time he needs more than just the help of his friends, and may just find it from his alternative selves...

Michael Giacchino has created music for films such as The Incredibles, Ratatouille, Star Trek, Jurassic World, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, The Batman, and Jurassic World: Dominion. He won an Oscar, a Golden Globe, a BAFTA and two GRAMMY Awards for the Pixar hit Up. Stephen Spielberg hired him to produce the first PlayStation game to have a live orchestral score, and he also worked on Spielberg’s Medal of Honour video games series. For J.J. Abrams he has created music for such prestigious projects as Alias, Lost, Mission Impossible III, two Star Trek films, and Super 8. Additional work for Disney includes Space Mountain and Star Tours, and for the National Symphony Orchestra the 60th anniversary of the founding of NASA.

After a track record such as that mentioned above – plus the two previous webslinger movies Spider-Man: Homecoming, and Spider-Man: Far From Home – I was expecting a lot from this soundtrack… and I got it! I love the movie and possess it on 4K, but when I’m removed from the film itself I find it impossible to remember any of the music. They say the best film scores are those you don’t notice – or at least only register subconsciously. Certainly, the film and the composition soundtrack work here as an inseparable team, because as soon as you revisit the movie the music floods back into your head. Isn’t this as it should be? Consequently, I was keen to discover how the music would stand isolated from its intended body of work.

After a couple of short teasers, we are well and truly thrown into the action and intrigue with 'Damage Control', a sort of Jive with both orchestra and electric guitar. 'Otto Trouble' incorporates a galloping stance, with stomps, slams and shrieking brass. 'Ghost Fighter in the Sky' is our first experience in this instalment of the Spider-Man theme for this trilogy. There is light and shade; action and adventure with 'Sling Vs. Bling', and tension galore with 'No Good Deed'. 'Liberty Parlance' has some suitable stirring moments, as does 'Monster Smash'. But it isn’t all action; the film has heart, and so we get tracks which really toy with your emotions: sadness, loss, the feeling that the world has been ripped from beneath your feet. This comes in the form of 'Gone in a Flash', 'Octo Gone', and particularly 'Exit Through the Lobby'. 'Goblin His Inner Demons' carries a sad introspectiveness, and 'Forget Me Knots' is both grand and heart-breaking.

Many of these pieces work really well as stand-alone compositions, and Michael Giacchino even fits in a play on words with a short track called 'Peter Parker Picked a Particularly Precarious Profession'. The best is saved until last, when we end with the 10-minute 'Arachnoverture', which includes all the Spider-Man personal themes in one suite. What a great way to end a thoroughly enjoyable soundtrack to a fantastic film.

9

Ty Power