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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great, but not yet the "Ultimate" Dawn soundtrack release..., April 16, 2001
As a huge, HUGE fan of this film since I was a kid (many years now), I grew up literally wearing my original soundtrack LP out (purchased from Fangoria magazine), and just about listened to it almost 24 hours a day for a few years there. ... Well, it's good news, bad news, really. Good news is that at the very least you can finally have the full, original DAWN LP soundtrack on crystal clear, digital CD--and it DOES sound great! Nice, wide stereo seperation, great sparkling dynamic range and virtually NO noise at all present. Really nice sound production here! So, as far as finally having the original LP tracks on a compact disc, I was a happy camper right out of the gate, and at least to me, anything else was just gravy.That said, I had REALLY high hopes for a few tracks, that did sorely dissapoint me in the end... as well as a couple new surprise gems that totally knocked me out of my chair! Yin and Yang, I guess. :) First nice surprise: Track 1, L'alba dei morti viventi, is finally in its "proper place" and kicks the CD off first!--as opposed to the second track, Zombi, starting it off as on the original Varese LP release. A subtle point, to be sure, but something I always found a litle instinctively askew on that old LP. I always wanted those two switched in their track order, so this just feels much better to me. :) Second surprise is just how cool track 11 is! Finally we get to hear something at least SIMILAR to (tho not THE real opening music, as we'll discuss in a minute) that eerie opening throb music played in the actual film. Great track!!!!! And it actually should, technically, be track number 1 now that I think of it. Heck, I'll burn my own "corrected" version soon (and leave out a few lame tracks I'll mention below). Third surprise: Track 12 (an alternate take). Pretty neat, tho really it serves no purpose since it was not used in the finished film (at least the American Theatrical cut that I grew up with). But it does sound cool and is welcomed in that regard. Fourth surprise: Track 14, the "Rooftop Music". WOW!!!!! Now this is an awesome track and one that I'd always hoped and dreamed to hear in all its pure, full-length glory! Momentous track for DAWN fans, plain and simple. I can't hear it enough. Fifth surprise: A little one, Track 16. Not earth-shattering, but still neat to hear--tho I'd much prefer some DeWolfe library tracks instead. OK, now the dissapointments... First, the cover. Absolutely horrid! Terrible from not only a design point of view, but also an aesthetic one. It still baffles me that THAT's what they went with for this rather important release. Extremely dissapointing. For that matter, the entire CD booklet and back case designs are also all pretty lackluster, if you ask me. Sorry but it's amatuerish, ugly, and from a fan point of view, thematically misguided. A real bummer. Now the tracks. Track 11 (which, as I said above, I do like a lot), still manages to be a slight dissapointment to me. If you know this film and the very SOUND of it and every note in it, like I do, then you know that while a "close approximation", this track on this CD is still not THE actual music element that was used in the film itself. And that's a tad disheartening--as cool as this new track still manages to be! First, the bass running throughout (the 'thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump'...) is NOT the deep, muffled, more sinister DRUM BEAT heard in the film's version of this track (yes, Goblin actually used a dull, thudding drumbeat for that sound in the film, not a tinny, trebly bass). That's the first thing I noticed was wrong right away (I'm also a musician, so I pay attention to those things). Next, while the Phase-shifting, Flanging *electronic swishes* heard in the background of this track here are pretty darn cool, they are NOT the actual Moog-processed HUMAN VOICE SAMPLES heard wailing in the actual film over the thump-thump, thump-thump, in the opening. Again, BIG dissapointment for me. Huge, really. The wailing voices are what make the opening so eerie if you ask me! We need those voice samples in this track--not JUST this swishing sound, tho some of this IS heard in the opening of the film mixed in with the voice samples..but you HAVE TO have those distinctive voice samples as well!! Actually, listen to track 12 on this disc...THOSE are the voice samples heard in the opening of the film. And THOSE are the kind of samples that needed to be included in this track for it to be authentic. :) OK, onward. Track 13 is, for any fan of the U.S. Theatrical release, pretty much a waste. It wasn't heard or used in the finished film, so it really hasn't much meaning for fans if you ask me. My custom burn will exclude this track for sure. If it was actually used in the movie, I'd love it, but it wasn't. So why do I want to listen to it then? It's pleasant enough, but what does it truly have to do with the finished film, DAWN OF THE DEAD? It wasn't used in it. Same deal for Track 15...I know this is heard in Argento's cut, but that is not ROMERO's cut and is quite honestly, just not anything I grew up hearing here in the States, so it simply has no meaning for me at all. Maybe it does if you grew up with the Euro version, and I could completely understand that (and this is a European CD release anyway, so..), but I myself didn't, so in that sense, it was a waste of a track for me, and is something I have no reason to listen to. This was quite a letdown when I got the disc, considering that the track is listed as "Supermarket". I was fully expecting a mall piece here from the Domestic version of the film. This is a good point to keep in mind I guess--this is NOT an American CD release, it's European, so it would then, naturally, reflect the version that Europeans mostly know and love. At least that explains certain tracks for me here. :) Lastly, Track 17, the "Zombie Voices", may have been my biggest dissapointment of the entire CD. I was expecting a track with the isolated HUMAN VOICE wailing samples heard in the film. Instead, it's a noisy, shrilly(!), way-too-loud phasey keyboard effect that sounds nothing, and I repeat NOTHING like anything heard in the film. And it was NOT used in the film--in any version of it. It's a gimmick to sell CD's. It worked. But once you start listening to the track, you really feel cheated--if you were expecting the weird human moans from the film anyway. Basically, it's a total wasted track, and one that I skip every single time--if it doesn't blow my eardrums out before I can run to the CD player when I forget to program the tracks! Bummer. Overall then, if you're a big fan of this film, well, ya gotta get this CD, of course. For the original remastered LP tracks and the few new tracks that are really nice, it's a qualified mini-goldmine, no doubt, and I'm glad I got it. But we still have a ways to go before anyone ever releases a REAL "complete" and "definitive" DAWN soundtrack CD (that would have to include library tracks, a GOOD overall cover and package design AND the proper REAL track 11). This CD is similar to all the Anchor Bay DAWN DVD/Video releases of recent years...close but no cigar. None of those releases are quite right, either. But that's another review....
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by Goblin 
