Sound Radius - Undying Love

Hear The Track Here

Ever since The Power WIthin Score (December 2006) - which incidentially got a Must Have rating from me - Sound Radius has been delivering musical peices that have entertained and amused me more than enough although he has yet to better that very first track. Not all that startling then, you might be thinking, EXCEPT that Sound Radius (as his name might imply) specialises in 'lush cinematic music experience(s)' and you know what I feel about film soundtracks. In fact, Sound Radius is almost alone in his field at making me say nice things about a genre that - in all other instances - I have taken a scalpel to rather than listening to the damn things. As such, I think it takes a rare talent indeed to get me off my mountain of predjudice.

Mind you, whenever I seen other reviews of this musician the words ' brilliant' and 'terrific' often feature largely, as summed up by the one comment on this track so far. Where Sound Radius always scores (no pun intended, honest!) is in his choice of instrumentation and the way he arranges his material to get the one element I always demand from this genre; drama. Yep, impact is the name of the game with this musician and always has been ever since that first blinder of a track. SR has also done much to load the dice in his favour with me on Undying Love by bringing some world music influences AND using them in a very constructive way. Although the peice doesn't exactly feel all that Arabic to me, the vocals do fit the track extremely well and are extremely familiar to me. I have heard these clips before somewhere but I can't put my finger on where, maybe Sound Radius will give us a clue or two eh?

Musically I have to admit that I didn't find Undying Love anything like as striking as some of his previous tracks and - after a lot of playing it began to seem a bit too 'cobbled together' which is definitely something I have not associated with this musician in the past. Now maybe its me just having a bad day and this will all sound much better with more plays but I somehow doubt it. Funnily enough its not something that I think Sound Radius is doing wrong so much as maybe a more personal preference. To be sure I did like the world music tinges he has brought to bear here but I don't think that is enough to get it over my long term indifference to it. There again, it might well be that a lot of that indifference is BECAUSE of the world music sounds, which I have heard in better circumstances. Still, as an indication of what Sound Radius can do, this will do as an introduction but I do urge you to listen to his earlier work for a clearer picture of what he is capable of.

Recommended soundtrack material. (Personal opinion notwithstanding)