SOUNDTRACKS

As the title would suggest, this is a compilation of incidental music that Tony Banks made for two 80s movies: Quicksilver and Lorca & The Outlaws (also known as Starship). I didn't know anything about the former going into this, and if the Red Letter Media crew is to be believed, the latter is apparently pretty terrible, but I didn't want to make hasty judgments about the music, especially coming off the relative success of Tony Banks's soundtrack to The Wicked Lady. The good news compared to that score is that this collection doesn't have any pointless, cheesy orchestral filler, but the bad news is that it also doesn't have anything nearly as striking or memorable as the songs from The Wicked Lady. The main theme of Quicksilver, the Fish-sung "Short Cut To Somewhere", an optimistic and spirited synthpop number, probably comes the closest and is pretty good by the standards of mid-80s Banks pop songs; its production is a bit too generic 80s power-poppy for my taste but neo-prog fans will probably appreciate this. The same praise cannot be uttered for the pop songs on the Starship OST which are just rather dull and mediocre: "You Call This Victory" is a toothless arena rocker with an ugly vocal performance and "Lion Of Symmetry" overstays its welcome by at least half its running time.

As far as the actual scores are concerned, it's all perfectly serviceable and listenable but aside from "Lorca" and the electronic "Smilin' Jack Casey" none of it is all that outstanding. By no means is this an essential item in Mr. Banks's catalog and only big fans of his compositions will find something of value here.