Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Halloween


Halloween
by Mannheim Steamroller [Compact Disc 394 Man]

From the kings of instrumental Christmas music comes this equally charming collection of Halloween-themed music and electronic effects tracks. Chip Davis and the Mannheim Steamroller gang do their own fast-paced modernized electronic versions of 8 pieces of classic music, including "Hall of the Mountain King" (Grieg), "Funeral March of a Marionette" (Gounod), "Night on Bald Mountain" (Mussorgsky), "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" (Dukas) and "Ride of the Valkyries" (Wagner). There are also 5 original Chip Davis tracks, including "Harvest Dance", "Z-Row Gravity", "Rock & Roll Graveyard", "Crystal" and "All Hallow's Eve". My favorite musical track, though, is "Rite of Twilight" -- a Chip Davis take on the Twilight Zone TV series theme. In addition to the 13-track music CD, there's also a second disc, filled with 10 sound effects tracks, including "The Reaper", "Alien Spaceship" and "Souls Demise" (among others). If you're a fan of the Steamroller's legendary Christmas albums, this is definitely worth sampling. It provides great background music for a Halloween party! [If you like the original 2003 set, there was a second set released in 2006, featuring 13 more music tracks, 7 effects tracks, and 4 dance re-mixes. Those were titled Halloween 2.]

[ official Mannheim Steamroller web site ]

Have you listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

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