Music From The Transformers Trilogy

Silva Screen Records here presents newly recorded cues from composer Steve Jablonsky's scores for the films Transformers, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, and Transformers: Dark of the Moon. Usually the label, which specializes in such re-creations, employs the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra, and that ensemble does contribute a couple of tracks here, notably "Prime/I Rise, You Fall" from the second film. But the bulk of the music is performed by an entity called London Music Works, which consists primarily of synthesizer programmer Steve Mazzaro. Given that the movies feature heavy use of computer-generated visual effects, it may seem appropriate to use synthesizers to play the music. But Jablonsky's scores actually have big, orchestra-like qualities that might have been better suited to the Prague. In keeping with director Michael Bay's gigantic visual scope, Jablonsky lends weight to the science fiction stories, inspired by a children's toy that also was the basis of a TV cartoon, by coming up with majestic, anthem-like themes, starting with the first cue, "Autobots." Bay's love of the military is reflected in "The All Spark," a martial piece featuring Pavel Belousek's cello solo. When Jablonsky got to the second film, he turned to more of an electronic rock feel, notably on "Nest," which incorporates an excerpt from "New Divide" by the hard rock band Linkin Park. "Dark Side of the Moon," from the third film, meanwhile, allows Rick Clark (also credited for additional programming) to break out his heavy metal guitar. But much of the time, the music is dominated by Jablonsky's big themes, which often have a wistful quality (especially "Tomb of the Primes"), and are sometimes led by the wordless vocals of Francesca Genco and Tara Clark. Like Bay, he takes the stories seriously, giving them more gravitas than they might seem to have otherwise. [The digital release of the album contains an extra track, "Prelude (Trailer Music)," from the score to Transformers: Dark of the Moon. It packs a great deal of pounding drama into two-minutes-and-18-seconds.]