This superb collection of music from Babylon 5’s second, third and fourth years could not be more different from its predecessor. Very like the show itself, Christopher Franke’s musical scores on his second B5 album grow darker, harder-hitting, more avant-garde, more epic and even a little more unnerving and disturbing. Beginning with a nicely extended version of the first season’s main title theme, the album switches gears abruptly as the first track of score music – kicking off with the first notes heard in the fourth season’s premiere episode – immediately waxes apocalyptic and much more action-oriented than volume one’s mystic passages. Still adhering to the first album’s leanings toward long orchestral suites with seldom-accurate track titles, Messages From Earth does make a concession to the more traditional discrete division of cues on soundtrack albums by including each season’s different theme song on its own track. This album’s ominously lovely choral textures will have an addictive effect on any 
Babylon 5 fan, though I highly recommend it to anyone. Unusual juxtapositions of percussion, orchestra, electronics, and choir, along with Franke’s tendency to disregard western major and minor tonalities with reckless abandon, make this a gripping listen, especially track 4, “Z’Ha’Dum”, which is actually mostly comprised of music from an intense episode called The Long, Twilight Struggle a year earlier.
- Main Title – season 1 / extended (3:16)
- Messages from Earth – music from Severed Dreams (10:05)
- Main Title – season 2 (1:30)
- Z’Ha’Dum – music from The Long, Twilight Struggle 12:19)
- Main Title – season 3 (1:31)
- Severed Dreams – music from Messages from Earth (15:37)
- Main Title – season 4 (1:29)
- Voices of Authority – music from A Late Delivery from Avalon (11:26)
Released by: Sonic Images
Release date: 1997
Total running time: 57:30
