Star Trek Nemesis
 
 

Without doubt a frustrating and disappointing soundtrack album for what is essentially a solid score. The ominous nature of the early cues are hardly what you expect for a Star Trek Movie and those hoping for a series of blistering action cues will also be sorely disappointed. The days when a Star Trek movie had the epic scale of Star Trek The Motion Picture and the adventure and excitement of the original crew sequels, have long gone. Berman and his TV crew have seen to that, as they continue to fashion TV product for the big screen and unfortunately it forces artists like Goldsmith to come up with an essentially low key score. Correct it may be and I don't doubt every note here is bang on the money but this is hardly the grand scoring that Goldsmith has achieved time and again and what a franchise like Star Trek deserves.

Varese's lengthy CD opens with a series of early cues focussing on the villainous Romulan's and their home world, ably supported by some darkly written electronic effects. Orchestra supports with stark percussion and strings while low end brass hints at Deep Rising style scares. Action phases in out during the middle and final selections and provide the orchestra with a solid work out although style again hints at an earlier score; this time US Marshals. These cues are in no way the stand out set pieces or action frenzies that you'd hoped they would be but they do again show how great an adventure scorer Goldsmith is, even in these restrictive circumstances.

In terms of thematic material the down beat nature of the story means these are forced into third place but Goldsmith has again written a new theme to augment his original. Emotive as his First Contact theme but just a little more melancholy to make it even more memorable. Heart breaking we couldn't have had more of this. Occasionally we also get to hear a phrase or two from his original stunning theme and of course it makes a proper appearance during the end credits. But if this CD needed something then it was more thematic material, which apparently does feature in the movie but just not here!

Not the satisfying listen that Varese made this score out to be at all, especially as you trawl through the grim opening cues, but the second half is a lot more rewarding giving the composer an opportunity to shine a little and remind us all why Goldsmith is the music to Star Trek.

Also available as an SACD.