Danny Elfman's Expanded Soundtrack For "HELLBOY II: THE GOLDEN ARMY" Is Flush With Atmospheric Wonder And Dread (REVIEW)
Image Courtesy of Varese Sarabande Records
“Hellboy II: The Golden Army” is the only collaboration between director Guillermo del Toro and Composer Danny Elfman and Varese Sarabande Records has released the film’s expanded score on a deluxe 2-LP set which we dive head first into for you fine fiends below.
The sequel to 2004’s “Hellboy,” “Hellboy II: The Golden Army” expanded on the world that creator Mike Mignola and director Guillermo del Toro made in the first film and turned the fantasy and macabre up to eleven. This special edition 2-LP set includes some mighty great perks like artwork from Mike Mignola and an epic illustration from movie poster legend Drew Struzan. If this alone isn’t enough to get your dollars flying out of your wallet the set is pressed on either gold or translucent red and blue colored vinyl. Now do we have your attention? Good.
Danny Elfman is a master composer in adding just the right amounts of symphonic pop and atmospheric heaviness to any film score and Hellboy II: The Golden Army is no exception. The album has peaks and valleys just like any soundtrack but because this is a Danny Elfman score, it feels fresh and just spooky enough for our liking. Don’t get us wrong, we love the soundtracks to “Beetlejuice” and “Big Fish” but this album just feels different than your usual Elfman experience.
As you listen to side one of the LP you are greeted by a large orchestra and choir, providing everything you’d want in a del Toro picture with humor and whimsy thrown in when needed. The intimacy given to tracks like “Doorway,” and “Princess and Abe” proves the awesome scope of Elfman’s interpretation of these scenes and truly expands the tone of the film. Remember, music is key to any great film and Danny Elfman does this one right. You can even tell where Elfman expanded some tracks and added more depth to them like in “Where Fairies Dwell” and “Spear.” These two tracks clock in at over 7 minutes and 3 minutes respectively and we all know how quick scenes can be in films so these tracks really extend and deepen the film upon listening.
Image Courtesy of Varese Sarabande Records
In a quote from the liner notes of the album, Elfman breaks things down better than we can:
“Anybody who does fantasy or horror well is somebody that I want to work with,” says Elfman in Daniel Schweiger’s new liner notes for The Deluxe Edition. Del Toro, for his part, wanted to differentiate the two Hellboy movies: “Hellboy II had an off-kilter and whimsical approach, yet one with undertones of darkness that I knew would be great for Danny. This was decidedly more melancholy because it looked at the illusion of fantasy... Everything is in decay, and that needed Danny to write a fantastic symphony for Mike Mignola’s universe.”
We agree with del Toro that Hellboy II feels a ton different than the first film as it added a love story, more fleshed out than the first, as well as a history lesson on fantastical creatures and their origins. These grand and widening sounds that Elfman dives into headfirst are magnificently represented in tracks like “Market Fight/Ground Wink” as well as “Big Decision.”
The areas of joyous rapture and looming dread the soundtrack provides will keep listeners on their toes and have them replaying this album into the wee hours of the morning. Every track hits home and brings you into the film all while providing a musical landscape that the listener can almost see in their mind’s eye.
The regular edition of the soundtrack only features 20 tracks and is about an hour in length. The new expanded version, we were able to get, has a whopping 39 tracks and clocks in at just over 82 minutes, now that’s a lot of soundtrack! The expanded album comes with 20 additional tracks not released on the standard edition release which we feel truly brings the whole picture of what Elfman was doing for the film to the forefront.
Photo Courtesy of Varese Sarabande Records
If you are a Danny Elfman or Guillermo del Toro fanatic, the expanded edition of Hellboy II: The Golden Army is going to be a joy to listen to on a dark and stormy night. We can’t gush enough about how deep and dark certain tracks on the album take you. Sometimes the tones and time signatures might throw the uninitiated off a bit but we profess that this is a soundtrack with more depth than many other films have even to this day. We had to break up the listening of this album into two sessions as it is just so vast and enjoyable to listen to, we admittedly got lost in it while enjoying some wine on a cold evening.
Hellboy II: The Golden Army Expanded Edition can be purchased at the Varese Sarabande website and we recommend you hurry as there are only 500 of these babies in existence.
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