Guy Michelmore has whipped up a wonderfully tongue-in-cheek, old-school orchestral action score that recalls the best of British WWII film scores of the 1950s and 1960s - with just a little dash of modern instrumentation. Complete with a rousing and heroic main theme march, Jackboots on Whitehall features a score that had to carry a lot of the dramatic and emotional qualities throughout the story due to the limited 'acting' of the film's plastic mannequins...

I have to admit to not expecting much from this soundtrack... I mean, come on... this is the score to an animated film about an alternate WWII in which the Germans invade the UK. The look and feel of the movie is like Team America or a full length Robot Chicken. The movie panders to the lowest sense of humour, and is packed full of cheap laughs... so you can forgive those who would overlook this thinking it would just be full of cliched music cues borrowed from elsewhere.

This is one of the most impressive and inspired scores that I've heard in recent years. It occasionally borrows from other sources ('Retreat to Scotland' - includes a nod to Samuel Barber's much used 'Adagio for Strings' and 'Facing Defeat' - references Gustav Holst's 'Jupiter' from The Planets Suite) but composer Guy Michelmoore does this with a respect for the original. There were actually quite a few cues taken from The Planets Suite scattered here and there ('Battle of Downing Street' beautifully combines elements of 'Mars' and 'Uranus', as the track opens pieces of both tracks briefly overlap one another).

There are also plenty of references to war movie soundtracks of the '50s - but don't ask me which, as I'm not well versed on that period - a lot of the tracks definitely feel as though they've been inspired by that era. There's also one of the most interesting renditions of 'Jerusalem' you're likely to have heard, which starts off tongue-in-cheek, but builds to something much more impressive.

This is a great collection of well crafted themes and set pieces. If you love strong orchestral scores then you'll enjoy this immensely.

10

Darren Rea