Skyfall Sony Music ****

With American Beauty, his first collaboration with director Sam Mendes, Thomas Newman won acclaim for his ground-breaking, percussion-driven score. His new score for Mendes' Skyfall boldly reimagines the style and sound of James Bond as a kind of "English Beauty", seriously shaken and stirred. Featuring dynamic orchestration, sinuous polyrhythms, idiosyncratic instrumentation (jazz horns, electric strings, oud) and elegant themes, Skyfall combines the warm sensuousness of vintage John Barry (Dr No, Goldfinger) with Newman's unique weave of lush textures and bright colours to produce an involving and atmospheric score that delivers pumping action, taut drama, and a surprising complexity of mood and tone – all with a sparing use of the signature 007 themes. Newman makes Bond sound both cool and contemporary. skyfall-movie.com

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