James Bond: Quantum Of Solace (Soundtrack)

This is David Arnold's fifth Bond score and it is by far his best in my opinion. I felt that his first three bond scores were a little heavy on the electronics. However, Casino Royale seemed to throw all that out the window and go back to using the orchestra.

Quantum Of Solace continues along the same lines as Casino Royale and has improved along the way. There are plenty more action cues on this soundtrack, which I felt were lacking from Casino Royale, but that is just down to the film content.

And as a result of the films content this soundtrack is packed full of action cues. However, this isn't exactly a bad thing because most of the action cues sound very impressive and are quite fun to listen to.

But the soundtrack is not without its slower moments and splits itself about even in terms of the amount of action cues versus slower cues. Whilst I do love the action cues, there is still a lot to enjoy listening to with the slower cues. The sweeping strings may not take the foreground like with John Barry's Bond scores but they are definitely there in the background. One thing I quite liked was the soft piano motif from Casino Royale that showed up in the Quantum Of Solace track "What's Keeping You Awake?".

Whilst this album is missing the James Bond theme which is on every other Bond soundtrack there is, this is still most definitely a Bond soundtrack. It is all in the details, and the details are most definitely there. David Arnold has definitely tuned into the Bond music scape that John Barry created.

The only bad thing about the soundtrack is the main title track called "Another Way To Die". Tagged on the end of the soundtrack, this track was written by Jack White and features Alicia Keys. If you've seen the film then you've probably formed your own opinion on this track. All I can say is that I think it is the worst bond song ever. If only David Arnold had been involved in the song, then perhaps it could have been as good as the rest of the soundtrack, and it might have made the movie slightly better.