JAMES PRIOR AND KEVIN PEARCE

The One Ring: Music inspired by J.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings

New World Music (2003)

review by Bill Binkelman

Any musical interpretation of Tolkien's literary masterpiece will inevitably be compared to Howard Shore's Oscar-winning score for Peter Jackson's movie trilogy. Most film critics (and many fans) admired or even raved about Shore's masterful ability to paint musical portraits of Middle Earth in Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers. Any attempt to work the same magic as Shore has performed will be held up to intense scrutiny, to say the least.

I'm pleased to say that Messrs Prior and Pearce have done a creditable and, at times, inspired job with their effort, The One Ring. They do fall into some cliché traps here and there (e.g. the use of a kind of Celtic "pub" music for the track "The Prancing Pony"), but I found much of the music refreshingly different in its blend of electronic/new age textures and more orchestral-sounding keyboards (unfortunately, some of the keyboards are less then perfect - strings and horns occasionally sound distinctly non-authentic, although not in a way as to be distracting).

A good example of this mixture of styles can be heard on "Three's Company" which blends stirring, and also touching, string orchestra segments with more ethereal synths at various points. While I noted the over-used "Celtic" feel of the music on "The Prancing Pony" the introduction of "crowd noise" effects scattered throughout the soundfield is both impressively executed from an engineering standpoint as well as adding a nice touch to the "feel" of the track (on headphones, these background voices are so eerily "real" that I was prone to looking for who was talking in back of me!).

"Flight to the Ford" is properly dramatic, aided by the sounds of whinnying horses at full gallop. This is one of the best tracks on the album, as it brings a real sense of the terror and panic that Frodo must have felt as the Black Riders closed in on him. This song is almost totally orchestral in sound and features some of the best keyboard work on the album from Prior and Pearce.

Another track I enjoyed was "Journey in the Dark" (I think this is actually better than the music Shore composed for the scenes in Moria). Here, the two artists combine minor key strings, oboes, and an undercurrent of drones. The song morphs into a creepy jaunting number, through the application of subdued muted drums, plucked strings, and mysterious new age textures (twinkling bells, choral samples). The tension builds and subsides, builds and subsides, until its Shore-like conclusion. "Mount Doom" features the best "non-sampled" keyboards; they sound almost Berlin-esque at times, and also reminded me of the more propulsive music from the soundtrack to Escape from New York (pulsing beats and frenetic pace driving the song forward).

The album has thirteen tracks in all, and none of them are what I would call bad, although some are less successful interpretations than others. "Lothlorien" was not as enchanting as it should be, given its subject, and "The Mirror of Galadriel" seemed too "cheery" at the outset, while "Treebeard" seems more intent on conveying the Ent's physical stature (the music is quite dramatic and full of timpani drum rolls) and less concerned with the character's age-old wisdom. However, these comments are indicative of what I alluded to earlier in the review, i.e. the inevitable comparison to either Shore's compositions or other previous efforts from artists.

On balance, I think this CD is a fine effort. It's certainly every bit as good as the one from David and Diane Arkenstone, even though they took a much different artistic approach. The Arkenstones' recording features higher quality instrumentation, but suffers from a lack of imagination (leaning too heavily on the use of British medieval music stylings or Celtic influences). Prior and Pearce have taken the less "safe" road and crafted music that only rarely imitates previous attempts to illustrate Tolkien's world with music. As long as you don't expect something on the scale of Tolkien's genius, I can recommend The One Ring to those who would enjoy discovering what composers "hear" when they read Lord of the Rings.