Eerie violence. That best sums up the style of music which John Frizzell has composed for Alien Resurrection. Following the haunting melodies of Jerry Goldsmith, the clausterphobic force of James Horner and the gothic sounds of Elliot Goldenthal, Frizzell follows up these giants by bringing a style all his own to the soundtrack. It is sort of a combination of all three of the previous Alien series composers. The gentle Main Title introduces the main theme of the movie which also happens to be Ripley's Theme. It is a simple melody that is perhaps something Frizzell wanted the listener to remember. He uses it at various times throughout the score. However, each time it is used, it convey's what Ripley must be going through in the scene.
Why is it eerily violent? Well, aside from Ripley's theme, most of the other music is meant to complement the undoubtedly violent action taking place on the screen. And being violent, the music is justly violent. It seems to conjure up images of not only aliens killing humans in the most grotesque fashion but also that the musicians must have also been injuring their instruments. All the strings in the string section must have been on the verge of breaking after recording some cues. And because of this violence, there is no real sembelence to the score until usually the end of the track where on several occasions, Frizzell returns with Ripley's theme at differing levels of intensity.
Is it a bad score? No, not bad, but not exactly as good as it could have been either. What was I expecting? I don't really know, but after growing accustomed to James Horner's score, I'm sort of biased but his style of violent music (piano crashes and all) is more of what I've come to expect. True it's a different composer but if he had used a little more coherence in the action cues, it could have provided better results.
Total time: 45:30
1: Main Title (2:06)
2: Post-Op (1:20)
3: Docking The Betty (1:16)
4: Priva Son D'Ogni Conforto (5:27) - Maureen Forrester courtesy of BMG Classics
5: Face Huggers (2:10)
6: Call Finds Ripley (3:02)
7: The Aliens Escape (4:12)
8: Ripley meets her Clones (2:19)
9: What's Inside Purvis? (2:28)
10: They Swim... (6:28)
11: The Chapel (2:35)
12: The Abduction (3:33)
13: The Battle with the Newborn (6:03)
14: Ripley's Theme (2:14)