4 out of 5

Label: Aniplex

Produced by: Makoto Yoshimori

A wonderfully committed whirlwind of jazz and funk, Makoto Yoshimori’s Baccano! score is a pretty perfect encapsulation of the series‘ ramshackle Prohibition-era narrative, maintaining the thematic bounce established in opener ‘Feast from a Long Long Dream‘ across 20+ tracks of varying tone.  Yoshimori – leading a full set of players on various horns and strings – mimics the genres approached here to a T, and perhaps to a fault, as it’s easy to overlook some of the nuance and just hear EZ-listening style head boppers or typical percussion-brushed lite-jazz.  Once through the score a couple of times, though, getting a feel for how it moves from the more generic to increasingly more intense takes on its theme – purposefully split by first a goofy waltz (‘Loosened Dance of Senses‘) and a return of the opener’s swing (‘A Stage of Mad Cries‘) – when you revisit those early tracks, a feeling of location and emotion emerges, and you can better hear the extra dashes of instrumentation layered in.

Some late entries, though belonging to flashback sequences (‘Melancholy from 200 Years Ago‘), do feel out of place when assessed as part of the score itself, both due to their more ‘regal’ tones and that the theme, and other established melodies, aren’t necessarily present, but taken on their own, these are very compelling tracks, and do serve as a downbeat before the excellent climactic buildup and then graceful denouncement through the last few compositions.

And, of course, you get Paradise Lunch’s ridiculously catchy opening song, Gun’s & Roses, and Kaori Oda’s closing Calling.