Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Radio Sunnydale-music from the TV series pub: CD: pub: Virgin. 7243 596003 2 1. Please Note This review is of the UK version that has 22 tracks. There is another version that only has 12. So check before buying-CD Wow is stocking the 22-track version at £8.99. Amazon.co.uk has the import at a whopping £15.99. Play.com has the US version with 12 tracks and an explicit lyrics warning-feel free to send it to me for review.)

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’I hate playing these vampire towns’ - Aimee Mann.

What does California make you think of? The Beach Boys, The Eagles, open-top cars and sun-bleached beach babes topping up their tan? Where have you been for the last seven years?

California is Sunnydale, where the sunbathing is strictly limited, the open top cars are protected with garlic and nobody listens to anything that can’t be heard at The Bronze.

On this CD, there are more memories of Sunnydale, the last chance to hear what was playing at The Bronze, the soundtrack of the Slayer’s life. What better than a night out with your mates, have a drink, have a dance and scope the crowd. Make sure nobody leaves with anybody...unsuitable. Buffy, like a policeman, is never off duty.

The Bronze is where so much of the action took place. Think of all those soulful looks from Angel, all that longing and angst played out in the music. Think of Oz and his band, Dingoes Ate My Babies, and again with the soulful looks. Think of Buffy and Xander dancing, Willow and Tara, Spike and Drusilla. Amazingly we never got to know who owned that club.

They obviously had bottomless pockets considering the number of times it got trashed. A few of the artistes that played the club and survived are featured here.

This CD is a collection of songs and orchestral tracks mostly from seasons five to seven. There are some additional tracks to take you further down memory lane. Thankfully the sleeve notes give some details of where the tracks were featured.

What of the music itself? It has a different feel to the original soundtrack with a smoother more finished sound and less rock driven tracks. There is a softer more vulnerable and reflective edge to these songs. If the first CD was a brash declaration of war by the Teenage FBI this is a more mature approach with the awareness of frailty and death but a love of life.

This is eminently listenable and grew on me with continued play. Standout tracks are the cheekily included Dandy Warhols with their anthem for the mobile phone ’Bohemian Like You’. ’Sound of the Revolution’ by Lunatic Calm shares this confidence with Laika offering up a throbbing insistent beat which is a little bit addictive in ’Black Cat Bone’.

Of the orchestral scores included here the Christophe Beck track is ’Dead Guys With Bombs’ and shares a distinctive signature with his other work. It’s a little repetitive for a soundtrack album. Contrast that with ’The Final Fight’ scored by Rob Duncan. This has a more epic reach and brought a tear to my eye.

For the ballads there is a superb track ’Blue’ song by Angie Hart, as featured in the Hugo wining ’Conversations With Dead People’. Add an Alison Krauss number ’That Kind Of Love’ and you could be in for a weep-fest. These are all wrapped around two versions of the Theme. The Breeders new more polished twist is indicative off the overall reach of this album but I still have a soft spot for the original Nerf Herder explosion of sound.

Overall, without mentioning every song, its got good repeat playability. I tend to play these things to death so I should know.

I’ve just got a little complaint here. There is a song by Anya in the episode ’Selfless’. It is a reprise of a little of ’Once More With Feeling’. It would have been nice to get that track on this CD. The other one is Dawn’s lurve theme from the quarterback episode. I think it was from ’A Summer Place’. There will always be favourites missed out I guess.

So that’s it Buffy signs off and all we have left is the music, the DVDs, the T-shirts, the calendars and perhaps...maybe a feature film now that would be a great New Year resolution for Joss Whedon...