BRIAN MAY – MAD MAX 2:
THE ROAD WARRIOR SOUNDTRACK (VARESE
A number of years ago
after coming off tour I found myself with a real urge to watch Mad Max 2. Perhaps it was my experience of two weeks on
the road (often driving) that gave me the desire to revisit so much automotive
carnage. Almost immediately one of my
first gestures was to head into town and pay over the odds for a copy of the
movie on DVD. It had been a few years
since I last saw the movie. Indeed the
first time I saw the film was around the age of eight when I hired it on VHS
from our local video store only to sit down to watch it with my best friend Aaron
who cried off the viewing early on as he was horrified by it. I watched it on my own the next morning as
was amazed. Was this where the world was
heading?
The Brian May score on
Mad Max 2 was always an imposing thing.
To be frank it always felt too high in the mix, too loud in the crowd. Mad Max 2 (aka The Road Warrior in America) was
never going to be the most quiet or sedate of movies but somewhere down the
line it was decided there needed to be more, the effects required additional
sonic assault. Enter Brian May.
Even though guitars
feel heavy, the score here is very orchestral.
This is not the full on hard rock action of Flash Gordon; this is serious
music, the real deal. Quite frankly you
only know it is conducted by the guitarist of Queen via the credits. And then you discover: it is a completely
different Brian May.
Soundtrack fans are
the music equivalent of tourists.
Mainstream ears suddenly pick up on classical gestures and nuances. With the mental music video of a movie in
their mind the shapes of the composition (the posh word for song) add an
emotive level. The second track is
entitled “Confrontation” and as menacing strings swoop in you cannot help but
envisage Mel Gibson
getting pounded by Australian
desert punks.
Throughout there is a
level menace attached to the eight tracks (ahead of a ninth track of fun
special effects). With “Marauder’s
Massacre” a beautiful piece of work is given an ugly name as the vibrant
direction changes encapsulate somewhere blood being spilled. The frenetic movements are jagged in design
done to keep and match up with the noted harsh editing of the motion picture. And then it all ends with a menacing
rattle. This was the future.
With track nine all
hell breaks loose as earlier composition “Break Out” is mixed into an “SFX
Suite” designed to display how sound effects were used in the score as in
essence instruments. These wonders
include the anarchic gems “Boomerang Attack”, “Gyro Flight”, “The Big Rig
Starts” and “The Refinery Explodes”. To
incorporate sounds in such a method was groundbreaking.
I must concede the
liner notes by Tom Null cannot be topped with his comment: “the music is
suffused by a profound melancholy for the losses mankind has sustained”.
Offerings from this
album later appeared in other movies including The Terminator.
This holiday is over.
Thesaurus moment:
stentorian.
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