Torchwood

At the end of my review of the second volume of music from the revived Doctor Who my next request was an album of music from Torchwood and if by magic (or a rift in time and space), here we have it. For those unfamiliar, Torchwood is the 'adult' spin-off featuring John Barrowman's Captain Jack Harkness (the real Captain Jack) and his gang who protect the Earth from the scum of the universe. In Wales. Actually, it's a nice change having something set in Cardiff instead of the more obvious London. Mind you, the endless overhead nighttime shots of downtown Cardiff do make it look gritty and exciting. Kinda. Anyway, it's all enjoyable hokum with considerably more sex and violence than Doctor Who and, given its urban setting, has a musical approach to match with a more liberal mix of orchestra and electronics. The opening cue, Everything Changes is perhaps archetypal in its use of electronic percussion, but this style forms a minority of the material presented on disc and with Toshiko & Tommy, there's some lovely string writing with all the genuine pathos one could want. So too has Into the Hub, although it features, slightly annoyingly. a synth sting which is almost the show's musical calling card, frequently used to punctuate between scenes and conclude action sequences. Unafflicted and equally rapturous is Gray's Theme, another Who universe female solo vocal, here performed by Annalise Whittlesea. A genuine occasion on which haunting is an apt description. The same could be said for The Death of Dr Owen Harper, Goodbyes, Death of Toshiko and others.
It's tempting to say that the action is somewhat Media Ventures in nature, but only in that it's built on a synth percussion basis, indeed it's probably more comparable to John Powell than anything, just a few notches down in complexity. The Mission is one of the best examples, mixing slower strings, spiky percussion and a few horn calls. Nothing especially innovative, but considerably more musical and interesting than many similar cues in full on film scores. Foster and Gold (the split is not clear on album, but Foster gets sole credit on most of the shows, however Gold wrote the title theme) keep clear lines in their action and give it momentum through good writing rather than pure volume. It's a point I make at every juncture when action writing is well done, but so often action is just loud and stodgy these days that it's worth reiterating at every opportunity. Quiet moments of a more optimistic sort are a little thin on the ground - it has a tendency to be a rather downbeat show in general - but there are a couple, notably The Woman on the Roof and I Believe in Him. Then again, both still have elements of sadness, but very affecting. The same could be send for The End is Where We Start From, which is an extremely effective conclusion, before the main theme.

While not necessarily that obvious within the show, the album identifies a number of character themes from the melancholy (what else?!) tune for Owen, Captain Jack's Theme - which features more as an action cue than anything - plus the very strong aforementioned Gray's Theme. The album closes with an extended version of the main titles music. It's not going to go down in history as one of TV's iconic themes in the same manner as Ron Grainer's Doctor Who melody, but it stands up reasonably well and sets the tone for the show and its score effectively. As a show, Torchwood doesn't have the awesome range of possibilities thrown up by its parent and hence its music is similarly more consistent in tone and it is a little downbeat overall. As a result, replay value isn't as great even though the material is still strong and for fans of contemporary action scoring, Torchwood is a fine example and tempered by a greater proportion of extremely well written dramatic material. Indeed, this represent the album's strongest moments and, even as an ardent admirer of Michael Giacchino, still better than his Lost music and most TV music these days. More than worthy of investigation.