1 out of 5

Label: Hollywood Records / Good Records

Produced by: The Speekers

Hey y’all, I’m from the future, many years past when the movie Thumbsucker came out, and we sold a ton of the soundtrack at the Tower Records at which I worked, and I’m here to clarify: this isn’t a great soundtrack, nor is it a great Polyphonic Spree album, and that lack of success on both fronts makes it something I never have the need to listen to. 

There’s some notoriety here, of course; a sad “origin” tale of a soundtrack intended to be made by Elliott Smith, who passed away around the time, causing movie writer / director Mike Mills to reorient toward Spree. Those factors – Polyphonic was blowing up at the time – somewhat guaranteed this would be a hot item amongst certain types: that hip new band, plus posthumous work by your favorite singer-songwriter = sold. 

Alas, Smith’s remaining tracks are, for sure, the most compelling things here, but they are not well supported by the Spree material Instead of a score that might build up to or prop up the simplicity and delicateness of Smith’s style, Tim Delaughter and crew strip down their sound as well, and also take the scoring approach of going somewhat by cue, i.e. it’s a lot of very short tracks, bereft of the choral joy on which Polyphonic made its name at the time. It’s weak and immemorable material, save for the points when they decide to rock out, but even those moments are either too abridged in terms of runtime, or, in the case of the Spree’s best song here, Move Away And Shine (In A Dream Version), it comes after the 30 minute drone of Acceptance, which firstly serves zero purpose on a movie score, and secondly is a swipe from the same thing on their debut album – further underlining how this score feels like an afterthought – and thirdly doesn’t function even if considering this disc on its own terms and not as a score, for the same Smith / Spree lacking juxtaposition mentioned: the song’s flute and chorus are chill, and have nothing propulsive to bounce off of. 

Yes, the Smith tracks are good, but you’re better listening to a full album; the score has one emotional note otherwise, and not in a compelling fashion – this is a very tamped.down version of the Polyphonic Spree, robbing their sound of its trademark elements.