Though only film music enthusiasts are likely to know him by name, Thomas Newman has a sound that anyone would recognize. He's the quirky composer that delivered the oddly discordant music of American Beauty, and the playful-but-mournful theme to Six Feet Under. He has on occasion scored for things that weren't straight up drama, but even then his particular approach has come with him. His score for Jarhead wasn't particularly aggressive or "action-like," but instead continued to explore strange instrumentation and unusual rhythms.
Skyfall is thus an interesting score in that Newman almost entirely masked himself. The movie not only liberally references the Bond themes established in past films, it apes everything about the classic style. Screaming brass, prominent electric guitar, jazz percussion, trembling strings... this score is a loud, pulse-pounding, in your face composition. Indeed, Newman embraces the classic Bond sound to a far greater extent than most of the more recent Bond composers (like David Arnold or Eric Serra) did.
The result is one of my favorite Bond scores in many decades. It includes several 5-star tracks, and a host of others that I find engaging to listen to outside of the film. From the extended opening in Istanbul to the action-packed climax in Scotland, he soundtrack is full of exciting cues. There are a few too-quiet songs in the mix meant for intimate dialogue scenes -- places that might have been good for Newman to indulge his more typical composing style, but he elected to play it straight all the way from beginning to end.
In any case, it's an album I'm glad to have in my shuffle right now. I give it a B+.
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