Thanks goes out to Jessica Stan for sending this in for review.
Released by Toho themselves, this CD contains Kan Sawada's soundtrack for the TV show Godzilla Singular Point. Combined with some songs by Annette Philip and reworkings of Akira Ifukube's Godzilla theme, this CD is quite full at around 77 minutes long. While I wasn't overly impressed with the soundtrack while watching the show, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this CD. In fact, it's a pretty consistent body of work, with some good themes and rarely any that flat out miss the mark, creating an overall enjoyable release.
So let's dive into looking at the music here. Before that, though, I want to elaborate on an earlier point: in the context of the show I found the soundtrack to be repetitive. Ifukube's Godzilla theme was way overused. This CD benefits from not repeating themes, even if they were used numerous times across episodes. As a result, it feels more diverse and allows tracks to make a more positive impression on the listener. Those tracks do naturally include all three reworkings of Ifukube's music. The "Prologue" track in particular is a nice interpretation, creating a subdued but menacing version of the Godzilla theme. It's not just a good interpretation, but also a styling I haven't heard before for the theme. The other two tracks, "Godzilla's Appearance" and "Godzilla's Theme", at times sound like a carbon copy of Ifukube's work for the Heisei series. That's not bad, since frankly those are largely considered peak Ifukube. Both deviate from the source, though, in notable ways. "Godzilla's Appearance" deviates more quickly, shifting around 50 seconds in with some different trumpet work. At about 1:50 it deviates even more, with different horn and drum work. Finally it ends with some chorus work added in. The end result is… okay. It's unique, but not an interpretation I feel is that great. "Godzilla's Theme" farse much better, but likely because it takes longer to experiment with the source. In fact, up until 2:50 it sounds remarkably similar to the Godzilla theme from Godzilla vs. Destoroyah (1995). Sadly, after that the track delves into some chorus work that misses the mark, but at least before that it's quite enjoyable.
As for the original material by Kan Sawada, there are several highlights. "Awakening of the Monsters" is at the top of my list, being incredibly energetic and an overall great theme. "Humanity's All-Out Attack" is another nice energetic theme, although it does feel cheap with obvious synth work that should have been left to a full orchestra instead. "Radio Wave Monster Rodan" is also good, and honestly reminded me at times of scores for the Marvel Studios films with action-like motifs. In fact, Sawada is pretty good at march-like music, also proving strong on themes like "Youth Resistance", "Singular Point" and "Great Decisive Monster Battle Gong", although the latter takes awhile to get going. There is also some diversity here thanks to the themes around Jet Jaguar and his crew, which Sawada decides to lean into marching band-like music. The end result is over the top, but enjoyable and frankly a perfect fit for the Jet Jaguar character.
Of course, it's also worth bringing up the work of Annette Philip. Her song, Alapu Upala, appears here five times and actually accounts for almost 17% of the total runtime. It's a lot. It's a nice song, although its use in the show was most effective when it was on the haunting side which it doesn't quite capture on the CD due to how it was played back on the show with less clarity. Of the versions here, I feel "Requiem" is the best, taking the material and making it both majestic and sorrowful at the same time.
In terms of tracks that miss the mark, luckily there are hardly any. "I'm Pelops II!" is one of them, though. There are actually three versions of this theme, starting very simplistic and getting more sophisticated with each iteration. The first version isn't all that pleasant to listen to. I can appreciate that it was Sawada's intent, as the later versions are actually good, but still doesn't change the fact that the first version doesn't make for an enjoyable listen.
Overall, this is a good CD. While there are parts of tracks that don't work, there aren't many themes that completely falter. It's also a nice mix of familiar reworkings while falling back on a large body of original work. Bottom line, a suggested soundtrack for Godzilla fans.
As a side note, I'm a bit disappointed that this CD isn't in any sort of chronological order. In fact, I would have a hard time describing what kind of order they were going for here. |
