ALL CREATURES HERE BELOW.

Welsh Born composer Ceiri Torjussen is a name that has been more and more on the radar of film music collectors, since early 2001 he has been active on the film music scene in Hollywood and has scored a number of interesting low budget or independent motion pictures. More recently the composer has become involved on a handful of shall we say more prominent productions and has impressed not only his peers but has caught the eye or in this case the ears of critics and soundtrack connoisseurs alike. I was taken with his work on BIG ASS SPIDER which contained a great score that mirrored and paid tribute to many of the soundtracks created for monster and sci flicks that were released in their droves back in the 1950.s.One of the composers recent projects is for the movie ALL CREATURES HERE BELOW, which is not as the title may suggest a creature or monster movie, well at least there are no monsters as we know them from the movies of the 1950’s. Instead the film focuses upon a couple who are on the run across America and take refuge in Kansas City, it is a tale that deals with the now prominent subject of poverty and the effects of family and also love. For the score the composer has employed a varied style and fashioned a somewhat sparse soundtrack, which is performed via a fusion of Symphonic, synthetic and also choral elements. However, saying that there is a wide variation of styles within the work, one can also note that Torjussen utilises one motif for a handful of the cues, which is more noticeable in the tracks, WALKING HOME, RUBYS LETTER and then becomes stronger and more pronounced in RUBYS HYMN. The choral work is at times celestial in its execution with the opening title track taking its lead from the Hymn PRAISE GOD FROM ALL BLESSINGS FLOW, which the composer arranges sympathetically to achieve a striking and affecting piece. As I say this is a work that anyone would say is of one style or that it contains an overall stylistic sound, the variation of the music is stunning, and therefore I think such an interesting and attractive listen. The music is at times dark and apprehensive, but then there are cues that contain lilting and attractive sounding musical poems such as GOING HOME, where piano and guitar collaborate, and I LOVE YOU which is a subtle and fragile piece. The composer fashions brief but pleasant compositions such as GONE and OZLAND that entertain and haunt the listen. This is a score that I found enjoyable, it is somewhat sparse and at times does evoke fleeting memories of the style of Tomas Newman, but is that a bad thing? Recommended.