Thanks goes to Jessica Stan for sending this in for review.
Released in early 1986, about a month after the LP for the movie, comes this soundtrack for Vampire Hunter D. Sporting artwork by Yoshitaka Amano, probably best known for his work on Final Fantasy VI although also did work for Onmyoji (2001), the release contains 12 tracks for the animated film. It's also the first soundtrack by composer and keyboardist Tetsuya Komuro, a member of the band TM Network that also did the movie's closing song. Unfortunately, Komuro's soundtrack itself isn't that good. It's not a total loss, with a couple of great to good tracks, but in all the score doesn't measure up.
To dive in, this disc starts very strong. "Night of the Demons" is a wonderful track, very atmospheric with a great sense of 1980's horror to it. It works well in the context of the movie and also as a stand alone experience. While the theme does preview the heavy use of synthesized sound from this CD's tracks, it also sounds starkly different from any other theme off the CD. For the other tracks, gone is any sense of dread. Instead the others have a budget in scope feel to them and are often very repetitive. There are quite a few pretty bad tracks off this disc, in fact. Ones like "The Resurrection of D" that just feel like they never start, hitting a repeating note, or themes like "Vampire Count Lee (Death)" that just draw on forever with a simplistic march.
Now I mentioned the heavy synthesized approach to the score. There are a few okay outliner tracks, though. These are "Promise (Part 1)" and "Promise (Part 2)" that have a more traditional keyboard style. The first of these does still give off a synthesized sound, while the second actually features piano work. While they aren't great themes, they are at least enjoyable unlike other cues and stand out for that reason alongside "Night of the Demons".
Bottom line, I feel like "Night of the Demons" is such a great track... but not great enough to carry the album. Sadly, a lot of these tracks are just unengaging and not very pleasant to listen to. The soundtrack really could have benefited with a very more cues like the second part "Promise". Ones that sounded a bit more traditional rather than leaning so heavily into experimental type tracks with synthesized sound that don't really pay off. Would have also helped had the ending vocal track, "Your Song" by TM Network, been included as it's a great song. Sadly, that vocal theme was left off and instead saved for single releases.
As a side note, the track titles for this release are lacking. A lot of repetition and presented in an odd format, like "entrance" and "death" themes for characters and two part tracks which is odd to see since there are only 12 tracks total. It's fairly nondescript, but also suffers from the ordering. While "Night of the Demons" is the first theme from the movie, the rest is kind of jumbled. This is due to the CD having the same order as the LP release. For the LP the concept was one half was the "vampire side" while the other was the "human side". This is why Count Lee's death theme, which happens very late in the movie, is featured at track six which was the end of the first half of the LP. |
