Young's Return to the Frightful
Review by Christopher Coleman

Composed, Orchestrated and Co-Produced by Christopher Young
Co-Produced by Flavio Motalla
Performed by the London Metropolitan Orchestra
Orchestrations by Pete Anthony, Jon Kull, Bruce Babcock, Frank Bennett, John Bell
Released by Sonic Images Records- September 2000

Composer Christopher Young enters the 2000 film music fray with yet another score that is completely different from his last project.   Toward the conclusion of 1999, Christopher Young produced the Newmanesque (as in Thomas), introspective score for the poignant film, The Hurricane.  Prior to The Hurricane, he layed down a smooth, hip-hop and jazz influenced score for In Too Deep.  Now, Bless the Child, a thriller, takes the composer in yet another direction.  Christopher Young now switches from subtle jazz influences to a full blown orchestra, choirs, tubular bells and chants.  More than a new type of score, Bless the Child represents  a return to the type of music that help establish his career.

With any spiritual, good vs. evil, holy vs. profane, film that irks its way out of Hollywood, there are a number of musical ingredients that come right to mind.  Bless the Child has its fair share of them; however, mingling amidst the clichéd elements that are bound to every film of this nature, Christopher Young provides a number of captivating moments-  mixed in with and sometimes comprised by heavenly vocals, disconcerting chants, glorious and sometimes chilling string swells.

This release is comprised of five excruciatingly long tracks- the shortest being 6:44.  Like buried treasure, the better moments of the score are hidden deep within these tracks.  While these moments can be quite spectacular, as performed brilliantly by the London Metropolitan Orchestra, they simply aren’t long enough to warrant sifting through ten minutes of music that is almost indistinguishable from music in at least 15 other horror scores.  The final track might be considered the best, since its relative brevity makes each moment of the track a little easier to appreciate.

The horror genre has provided composers with opportunity to development some of their most complex works.  Certainly, this is the case for Young, as he demonstrated  earlier in his career.  Marco Beltrami for the Scream trilogy, John Debney for End of Days, Alan Silvestri for What Lies Beneath and now Christopher Young for Bless the Child, all perform aptly for their respective projects; however, the nature of this sort of film, only on rare occasion, provide opportunities for the composer to deliver the sort of music one yearns to hear outside of the film itself.  However complex and technically challenging, Bless the Child is not likely to be the sort one listens to repeatedly. 

Young’s talent simply can not be denied.  One need only listen to his last few releases, save maybe Entrapment, to hear his wide range of abilities. He demonstrates his talents through this variety of films and styles which now has to include Bless the Child.  

From the liner Notes

Working with Christopher Young on "Bless the Child" was inspirational in the most literal way.  I happened to be in the midst of completing our optical effects for the film when I met Chris in London to record the score of the movie.  His music was so vivid that it helped me visualize with great clarity the supernatural entities of both darkness and light.  Chris' score stands on its own as a powerful journey into that supernatural world.

Chuck Russel
Director, Bless the Child  

Referenced Reviews:  
The Hurricane | In Too Deep | End of Days | What Lies Beneath