Brian Byrne’s score is a pleasing mix of eclectic styles and fusions, mixing both score and original idiomatic source cues to create a sometimes quixotic narrative. Several of the composer’s meditative orchestral cues are infused with light electronics. “Drip Swap” features a distorted guitar chord effect (oddly reminiscent of The Prisoner TV scores) and chimes, as does “Set Them Free” with heavy keyboards, electric guitar, and layered pulsing motifs, contemporizing the drama if not adding an ominous layer to match the characters’ desperate situations.

Among the handful of source cues are several jazz pieces (the best being the sax-heavy “Wine Bar” and “Wine bar with Harbison,” the latter a good soundalike version of Kenny Burrell’s “Chitlins Con Carne”), and piano & violin duet “Piano and Wine” which is weirdly over-wrought in sadness, and is (hopefully) intentionally maudlin.

Most of the album’s drive comes from slow-burning variations of Byrne’s brief main theme, and while not a particularly punchy album, its discrete design is on occasion affecting, mostly due to the recurrence of threadbare cues featuring piano and sustained chords. The score’s engineering is first-rate, as are Byrne’s expert orchestrations which generally maintain a fluid movement between score and source cue across the digital album’s 50 min. length.

© 2012 Mark R. Hasan