Concerning spoilers: I avoided mentioning story plots in this review, but I have to address some concepts which you may not want to know.
I always hesitate to review music from a TV show’s season if I have already discussed a previous one. Most often, the music is a continuation of what has already been written by me, but sometimes you listen to the new music, and you know immediately that you have to write about it, as is the case with Bear McCreary’s music for the second season of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.
The main reason why I want to write about the music for the new season is because of how well the first score was received. According to McCreary’s blog and social media, he spent weeks developing themes on that music and wrote by himself every second of The Rings of Power’s first season, resulting in a masterpiece. The music contains perfect theme integration and is a gorgeous orchestral score in the same soundscape as Howard Shore did for the trilogy. If you are curious about my thoughts, you can find those in my The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Season 1 review, which I recommend reading before continuing with this review of the second season.
As with the first season, multiple albums are released for the second one. One album contains the season’s musical highlights, which will be the focus of this review, but also eight additional albums containing the music for each episode were released. With the new season continuing the story, many themes are already established, and for the highlights album, McCreary took this opportunity to focus on new themes. What makes this new album interesting is that McCreary created a personal metal album called The Singularity between the two seasons. For that album he collaborated with many musicians, and two of them agreed to cooperate with him for two new themes for The Rings of Power. The first theme is for Tom Bombadil, and his melody can be found in the gorgeous song “Old Tom Bombadil,” performed by Rufus Wainwright.
The second theme, resulting from collaboration with those artists, is something else. If you think about music for The Lord of the Rings, a gorgeous orchestral and melodic score comes to mind, but for the huge killing monster Damrod, McCreary opted to go full metal. In “The Last Ballad of Damrod,” you can experience metal vocalist Jens Kidman praising the troll with his grunts while being backed up by metal guitars, drums, and the whole orchestra. You would think that such a track should not have a place in The Lord of the Rings cinematic world, but when the music comes up in the show when Damrod is slaughtering friend and foe, it fits perfectly.
More new themes can be found on the highlights album. Two of these themes stand out. One is for the people of Rhûn, found in the track “Rhûn,” containing lovely chants on a solid musical foundation, and the other can be heard in “Concerning Stoors,” for a newly introduced hobbit race. There are more thematic ideas, but knowing McCreary, he will tell you about them in his blog posts if he has not done it already. He obviously knows them better than I ever could, so I would recommend seeking these blog posts out.
The remaining tracks on the second season’s main album, which do not showcase one particular theme, are the musical highlights from all eight episodes. In these tracks, many of the themes, old and new, can be heard, perfectly integrated, or adapted to the scene’s mood. If you are curious about how McCreary has implemented this, I recommend watching the show to hear them in the context of the scene. If you watch the show, most of the scenes are supported by one of the many themes. This can be a challenge from time to time because what should a composer do when two thematic aspects are fighting or even more challenging: kissing? McCreary was able to let multiple themes interact with each other flawlessly in every situation. As a result, when you listen to the eight episode albums afterwards, you can relive the story by just listening to McCreary’s music.
Bear McCreary is known for his skill in writing memorable melodies and how he can make them fit into the music for the media he is writing for. With The Rings of Power Season 1, he has perfected that skill, worthy of the first IFMCA Score of the Year Award for a television series. What makes the music for the second season even better is that while the music is still appropriate for the The Lord of the Rings universe, you can clearly hear McCreary’s style. It is, again, a magnificent score, and I would not be surprised that it will win another IFMCA Score of the Year.
Listen or buy
- Buy this soundtrack from Amazon or Apple Music
- Listen to this soundtrack on Spotify
Tracklist
The highlights are in bold.
- Old Tom Bombadil (3:10)
- Rhûn (2:35)
- Concerning Stoors (3:32)
- Golden Leaves (3:18)
- Cirdan’s Perfection (6:30)
- Stone Singers (1:15)
- Sandstorm at the Well (3:46)
- Eregion (3:42)
- Emissary at the Forge (6:36)
- Shelob (1:48)
- The Pyre (2:28)
- Estrid (3:12)
- The Great Eagle (2:57)
- The River‐daughter (1:09)
- Barrow‐wights (2:24)
- Forgiveness Takes an Age (2:40)
- Candles on the Tide (3:40)
- Army of Orcs (4:11)
- The Last Ballad of Damrod (3:17)
- Battle for Eregion (11:32)
- Durin’s Bane (8:37)
- Last Temptation (7:11)
- The Staff (4:17)
- Old Tom Bombadil Reprise (2:19)
- The Sun Yet Shines (4:34)
Total length: 1 hour and 40 minutes
Amazon Content Services LLC (2024)
