Given that director-composer John Carpenter’s electronic scores were so integral to his classic 70s and 80s horror movies, from The Fog to Halloween, it’s a wonder that he waited so long to release an album. However, following 2015’s Lost Themes, this is his second such offering in 14 months. Made (again) with his son and godson, it pairs sinister synthesisers with chugging, almost prog-rock guitars, bass and drums. It ranges in style from the terrific opener Distant Dream – which could be an imaginary collaboration between Joy Division and Tangerine Dream – to more conventional (if dark) 80s-style electronica (Persia Rising), prog (Angel’s Asylum) and brooding neo-classical (Utopian Façade). Carpenter certainly knows how to build a mood and each track simmers with suspense. Disarmingly pretty tunes provide innocuous preludes to creeping aural dread and the best tracks conjure up movies in your head, with White Pulse and Dark Blues in particular conjuring imaginary terrors.
