Krull

Announced just prior to (and available at) the 2010 San Diego Comic Con, this long-overdue remastered (and, this time, officially-licensed and above-board) edition of the Krull soundtrack is practically custom-made for Comic Con – it’s such an obscure, cult-following niche item that only a Comic Con attendee or Krull‘s own mother could love it.

As hard as I ride the familiar horse that virtually everything James Horner composed in the 80s had the DNA of his score for Star Trek II in it, Krull at last pushes the familiar chords and progressions into a more fantastical, sword-and-sorcery realm. The movie itself was one of numerous cinematic attempts to marry SF and swashbuckling fantasy in the wake of Star Wars, though Krull made the mashup more literal than most, with more traditional feudal elements jostling for screen time with sci-fi concepts. Despite a merchandising blitz, it wound up with a cult audience and little more.

And up until La-La Land’s nicely cleaned-up 2010 two-disc soundtrack release, that cult audience had to make do with the (now insanely rare and expensive) pressing of the Krull score from the defunct Supertracks label. Supertracks was a ’90s outfit, also known for having turned out the only CD release of the music from the Paul McGann Doctor Who movie, that operated on a slightly shady basis: composers needed promotional copies of their work could get them pressed by Supertracks, but in exchange, they would quietly look the other way while Supertracks also sold copies of the same albums to soundtrack collectors. Though frequently sporting fine cover artwork and booklets, Supertracks’ releases were seldom, if ever, officially licensed. Supertracks suddenly disappeared early in the 2000s, and one doesn’t have to be a rocket scientist to connect the dots. Krull – and everything else produced by Supertracks – went out of print overnight and became collectors’ items.

La-La Land snatched up the rights to an official Krull soundtrack, fortuitously timed to both Comic Con and the DVD and Blu Ray release of Krull. The track list is largely the same as the Supertracks edition, but it sounds much better – the difference in sonic quality is considerable. There’s also a specially-edited “Theme From Krull” suite assembled by the album producers from portions of the opening and credits.

Though this edition is also, as far as the label is concerned, sold out of its edition of 3000 copies, but let’s look on the sunny side: there are 3,000 fresh copies out there with better sound quality than the old release that was all but a bootleg. Krull‘s worth revisiting, and this time you just might be able to afford it.

Disc One
1. Main Title And Colwyn’s Arrival (7:34)
2. The Slayers Attack (9:18)
3. Quest For The Glaive (7:23)
4. Ride To The Waterfall (0:53)
5. Lyssa In The Fortress (1:28)
6. The Walk To The Seer’s Cave (4:10)
7. The Seer’s Vision (2:18)
8. The Battle In The Swamp (2:39)
9. Quicksand (3:38)
10. The Changeling (4:04)
11. Leaving The Swamp (1:58)

Disc Two
1. Vella (3:46)
2. The Widow’s Web (6:18)
3. The Widow’s Lullaby (5:01)
4. Ynyr’s Death (1:41)
5. Ride Of The Firemares (5:22)
6. Battle On The Parapets (2:53)
7. Inside The Black Fortress (6:13)
8. The Death Of The Beast And The Destruction Of The Black Fortress (8:31)
9. Epilogue And End Title (4:52)
10. Colwyn And Lyssa Love Theme (2:35)
11. The Walk To The Seer’s Cave – album edit (2:16)
12. Theme From Krull (4:48)

Released by: La-La Land Records
Release date: 2010
Disc one total running time: 45:23
Disc two total running time: 54:16