Denny Schneidemesser - Alpha Animal (BBA Suite)

Hear The Track Here

Being an old curmedgeon, I have been known to whine and moan about many things, especially certain kinds of music. The tales of my venom towards certain genres are legion, and nowhere more so than that poor misguided genre: Film Music and Scores. See, as I've said twenty million times, I'm one of those dull old farts who think that the music should be experienced with the visuals - as the film maker intended it. Having said that, I do actually like some of the work of John Williams and Danny Elfman is one of my all time favourite score writers so I am not totally unsympathetic towards the genre - just some of the lame attempts to master it. Several things have encouraged me to think that things are getting better on Soundclick; first with the awesome debut tracks of Sound Radius which should be heard by everybody on the planet, preferably in a cinema near you as a total package.

Denny Schneidemesser has a lot of the same qualities and a distinct talent for putting the right things in the right places. Of the three tracks I have reviewed so far, I was able to recommend them all in some form and for me, that is not bad going at all. Alpha Animal (BBA Suite) is a peice written for Kay Fedewa's Blackblood Alliance, a popular comic strip apparently being turned into a movie. If you take a look at the page in the link, you should get a fair idea of the kind of music this pecie would require and Denny supplies it with ease. Although to my ears it sounds a little light in the production department, musically it presses all the right buttons; especially given the tense (or should that be intense) action of the comic strip.

As always, Denny's musical palette is fairly orthodox, it's in the way he applies these different textures that make him stand out of the crowd. A lot of that I have always put down to the discipline instilled in most musicians of Germanic stock, but there is no denying that Denny is bringing some born-with-it talent along with him. Considering that this is computer generated, there is noticeable factory sound to it, the strings and brass are authentic, effective and stirring - even for a cold hearted sob like me. I can't put my hand up and say I loved this track because to be honest, I didn't. It's a bit too close to the situation I was describing at the beginning of this review, especially now I have seen the comic strip it is coming from. I'm certain this would have a desired effect when seen with an animated movie, because it makes strong enough statement as is but it isn't something I would choose to listen to that often.

Recommended Film Score.