About this Artist

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Editorial Reviews

There have been various versions of the television series Battlestar Galactica -- the original network series that ran on ABC from 1978 to 1980, a mini-series in 2003, and a new cable series on the Sci Fi Channel beginning in 2004 -- and, confusingly, they have all used the same title, without any distinguishing addition such as "The New Generation" to help out viewers. And they have all produced soundtrack albums, which can make things even more confusing. This album chronicles the second season of the Sci Fi Channel series, which ran from 2005 to 2006. Like the first season, it featured music composed by Bear McCreary. As a writer of background music for a science fiction project, McCreary has displayed two unusual characteristics. First, he has not restricted himself to symphonic or synthesized orchestral sounds to evoke the outer space setting. His approach is much more eclectic, and much more concerned with ethnic and world styles, which would seem a bit, well, earthbound, but appears to work for the series. Second, he is a big aficionado of drums: big, thundering drums. Both of these characteristics were on display in the soundtrack album for the first season of the Sci Fi Channel series, released in 2005, and they are both on display on this sequel, if not quite as much. True, McCreary turns to his big drums, for example, in "Scar" and at the end of the lengthy "Prelude to War," and his eclecticism comes out in, for example, the Scottish feel of "Reuniting the Fleet" and the heavy metal-crossed-with-Indian styles of the closing track, "Black Market." But he seems to have had more time and more money to work with the second time around, and he seems to have used it to bring in more traditional, string-filled orchestra sections to go with his mix-and-match music. The result is an album that is a showcase for a composer with quite varied skills. (Fans of the original series may be pleased to hear that McCreary also feels confident enough to slip in a bit of Stu Phillips and Glen A. Larson's music from the original series in the opening track, "Colonial Anthem.") William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide

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