Alfons Conde, who wrote the acclaimed scores for The Abandoned and The Dark Hour, is back with a new orchestral horror score for director Elio Quiroga's No-Do. The movie is a ghost thriller taking place in a haunted house - and Conde's music is just as chillingly eerie and musically inventive as his previous two scores...

Alfons Conde's soundtrack to No-Do (marketed as The Beckoning in North America) is performed by The Bulgarian Symphony Orchestra and the Kup Taldea choir. The combination of the two, at times, bring out some incredibly powerful moments.

'Footprints on the Wall' uses the vocals to provide an eerie backdrop to the building swell of the score, as well as injecting a certain amount of creepiness to 'First Night in the House'. The closing track, 'The Martyrs and The Third Postulate', also uses the choir to build to the piece's crescendo and then they are brought back in to provide a beautiful end to the album.

Throughout this album there are numerous standout moments of original music. There are also hints, possibly intentional homages, to other composers work dropped in here and there.

'The Three Girls' has a hint of John Williams's score for Raiders of the Lost Ark. Equally 'Ex-votos' has elements of Williams's score for Close Encounters of the Third Kind. In fact there are a lot of elements from these two movie splattered throughout this soundtrack. The opening to 'The Baby's Gone' reminded me ever so slightly of Howard Shore's music for Silence of the Lambs.

This album is packed to bursting of beautifully realised and original themes which make this an essential purchase for fans of classically arranged soundtracks.

9

Darren Rea