I saw Pirates of the Caribbean 2 "Dead Man's Chest" in the cinema this weekend, and I thought the music worked very well! Actually I was positively surprised with Hans Zimmer's score - definately one of his best efforts in a long time (I respect him as film composer, but do think many of his scores are too alike and "factory-made", but not this one).
Of course, the addition of the pipe organ in the movie was awsome
, and what made it really great was that Zimmer actually used some very good and apropriate "pipe organ samples" that made it sound close (sometimes almost indistinguishable) to a "real"* pipe organ and made it's effect very cool overall - adding real value to the score. A far cry from those horrible cheap standard synthesizer "pipe organ sounds" that unfortunately are heard so often even in big budget movies. Great respect to Zimmer for making truly good use of an organ for once.
(* one could argue that what is heard
is actually in some way a "real" pipe organ since most of the sound has probably been recorded and sampled from one - though I don't know exactly how Zimmer worked with this aspect of the socre. If anyone has any more info on the subject please let us know
)
So, today I got the soundtrack CD and I have to agree with you, Frederik, that "The Kraken" is my favorite track too. 03 "Davy Jones" is also nice, even though a lot of the pipe organ solo that was heard in the film was cut from the soundtrack CD. The rest of the tracks are nice also, albeit a little weaker, though I don't think the remixes were particularly interesting.
Overall, a fine soundtrack CD that I can fully recommend - with one of Zimmer's best scores in a while. I do think the music works better in the movie, but the CD is still worthwhile.
