Although they've collaborated in the past on scoring Green Dragon and Tideland, Fracture is another example of brothers Mychael Danna and Jeff Danna's superb scoring abilities, though their latest collaboration contains less recognizable aspects of their collective and individual styles.

That isn't to say Fracture is a straightforward score. Right from the slow, string-heavy opening cues, the emphasis is on inner conflict, vulnerability, and seething doubt – intimate aspects each composer has always been able to underscore with great subtlety and finesse.

A cue such as “You're Home Early” is a great example of the score's design: long swathes of sustained chords and intersecting harmonies, with periodic figures on piano or throbbing left-to-right channel synth bass that, as an aggregate, emphasize tonal emotional shading and shifting. It's not quite Barryesque – the Danna brothers don't emphasize repeated melodic phrases as heavily as John Barry in such later suspense scores as Jagged Edge or the luxurious and romantic Masquerade – but more straightforward melodic cues like “Call Me Later” are richly emotional, and use repetition and delicate solo piano to infer tenderness.

The music for Fracture contains some of the elegant classicism and brooding shading familiar to suspense scores, but the Dannas integrate electronics and techno percussion in a smooth, organic fashion. “Beachum” might recall James Newton Howard's late eighties/early nineties reliance on a bass groove with swelling melodies and percussive eruptions, but the clean shifts between moods – a kind of hard arrogance, self assurance, and tenderness characterize “Beachum” – and gripping harmonics eliciting audience empathy are stylistic highlights. “I Didn't Know Her Last Name” repeats the heavy bass tones in “Beachum,” while a full orchestra with brass (the latter largely absent from the score) and hard percussion nicely hammer some heavy tension in ”I Decide When It Gets Pulled,” the score's longest cue (6:52).

Exotic percussion, a favourite element for both composers, does appear in the harsh cue “Objection,” though like most of the tracks in this album, it's a brief cue that infers the score itself was crafted with an emphasis on sparseness and precision support for the film. Few of director Gregory Hoblit's films can be characterized as standard; his take on courtroom thrillers (Primal Fear, scored by Howard), supernatural noir (Fallen, scored by Tan Dun), and time travel thriller (Frequency, scored by Michael Kamen) diverted stories and characters into oddball directions, and each respective score is composed to suit the film, not the director's personal style.

Mychael and Jeff Danna's emphasis on contrasts suits Fracture's cat-and-mouse plotting, yet stressing emotive, slow building and sustained harmonics make this album particularly notable among suspense scores. Even when a full drum kit and throbbing bass govern brief tracks like “I Haven't Decided Yet,” the pacing is still very measured, and guarantees audiences will not get an quick resolution, nor familiar wall-to-wall score that transmits clues director Hoblit typically reserves for twist finales.

As an album, Fracture oddly feels rather short, but it's an intelligently written work that again demonstrates the versatility of its fine composers.

© 2007 Mark R. Hasan