Search - Original Television Soundtrack :: Babylon 5: River of Souls

Unlike any of Christopher Franke's other B5 soundtracks.

Matt Rehwald | Park City, UT | 06/12/1999

(4 out of 5 stars)

"The River of Souls, Chris Franke's final B5 soundtrack, mixes everything from keyboards and orchestra to vocal chant and exotic instruments. The end result is a score which sounds more like it came from a major motion picture, rather than a cable TV movie. Franke has borrowed very little from his earlier B5 scores for The River of Souls, and the samples he has re-used are often very subtle and blend in well with the newer material. The River of Souls bears a passing resemblance to some of Franke's fifth season B5 work, but otherwise it's completely different in style and overall feel. In the shorter cues, like "Scissorhands" and "Rage Unleashed", Franke seems more interested in making noise than actual music, but the longer cues such as "The Lost Souls of Ralga", "'You Made a Mistake.'", and "Soul Hunter's Sacrifice" show Franke at his musical best, and are what make this CD worth buying. It's hard to tell whether The River of Souls reaches the incredible emotional impact of Endgame or In The Beginning since it approaches the listener from a completely different musical perspective, but I do have to rank it as one of Franke's better works."