As you will note from the timing above this is a very full and generous programme, with no less than 28 tracks!. It is also a very exhausting one. I commend it more to the younger visitors to this site. Most of the music is relentlessly strident. The opening two or three selections set the pace heroic full of heraldic brass and pounding drums. The album boasts a 60+ orchestra but I doubt whether this is utilised in all the tracks. Many of the later ones seem to be rock/jazz/pop driven with guitars and electronic instruments and synthesisers. The conductor is Jack Smalley who scored Charlie's Angels, Murder, She Wrote and Knight Rider. He contributes one of the most attractive tracks a special composition, Alien Autopsy which impressively eschews all electronics in favour of good old acoustic instruments to get the desired "other worldly effects - except for the use of the theremin at the end.

Variable arrangements of the music of John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith, Elmer Bernstein, Alan Silvestri, David Rose, Danny Elfman and Mark Snow are included. Interestingly there is a cue entitled The Wild, Wild West by Richard Markowitz (for the CBS series) which reminds us that science fiction tales can be likened to cowboys riding to the stars. Other TV series favourites included are: Xena: Warrior Princess and Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, Joseph LoDuca's fun scores, British TV The Saint theme and of course the X-Files given a cranked up treatment to include slithery alien evocations. The Lost World: Jurassic Park - gives us atmospheric jungle evocations and breathing, steaming monster effects and curiously Bernard Herrmann's Psycho music seems to have been resurrected for Reanimator. Uneven but fun for the youngsters

Amazon lists three albums by  Neil Norman and his Cosmic Orchestra:

Greatest Science Fiction Hits Vol. 1  Vol 2  Vol 3

Reviewer

Ian Lace

Reviewer

Ian Lace