4 out of 5

Label: Waxwork Records

Produced by: J. Yuenger (mastered by)

Well here’s a pleasant surprise, and further – as if you needed it – evidence that Waxwork Records knows what’s what: a score for a flick you might not’ve heard of from your “internet’s top 50 cult horror films” reading, and a composer whose name isn’t a hop-skip-and-jump to something more spotlight baiting, and a final product that’s damned engaging and actually chilling!  What’s even more surprising, to my grey matter and wax-laden earholes, is that our composed, Richard Einhorn, made this happen during the kick off of the electronic era of horror film music, meaning that we’re dealing entirely with synths and keys…  While this has led to some awesome scare themes in our time, whole soundtracks produced as such generally lose impact outside of said theme; besides being hindered by a cue structure – i.e. a lot of these tracks are short cuts that drop, right when they’ve built to the point – Shock Waves finds effective evocations for every required emotion in the film, peaking with the goddamned haunted nazi zombie march of Death Corps, but echoed throughout in the score’s other experiments.

Nazi zombies?  Yeah man, with Dead Snow about a million years in the future.  But that’s on you to watch the film.

The delicate main theme that Einhorn winds in and out of his score is enhanced by keyboard trickery that mimics ambient noise: sea sounds, seagulls, and then, also, straight up distortion, a wonderfully discordant effect that ups the sense of unease the score perpetrates.  While, as mentioned, the structure of recording this as mostly cues as opposed to full compositions does create some repetition, but at the same time, the short build and release of each cue does keep the score moving along.

The Waxwork remaster sounds brilliant (they’d gotten past their pressing issues by this point, I’d say), and the liner notes from Einhorn reflect the care and dedication he put into the music, which is clear even before reading his reflection: you’d rate this flick on par with stalwarts like Dawn of the Dead based just on the music, not realizing its quite a bit further down in the cult movie pile than many.  There are also some alternate cuts fleshing out side B, which don’t differ too greatly to my ear, but there is a slight rawness to some of the effects, and the arrangements are tweaked.  I would say the “final” versions are superior.

CD copies of this are actually pretty damn expensive, and I don’t believe there’s a digital version.  But that’s for the best, collectors!  As these kinds of back-of-the-video-store films’ music is best appreciated via Waxwork Records preferred vinyl format, with Shock Waves being a prime example of the genre.