From the British indie circuit comes the film, Bad Day, with music composed by Dominic Glynn.  Dominic has been in the business of composing for film and television since the 1980's and displays his skill quite well in this independently produced score.  What immediately impressed me is that the one-man production behind the music delivers a polished product and one would be hard-pressed to fathom that there wasn't additional resources behind this effort.  That's the mark of a resourceful talent.

 

The score itself isn't meant to break new ground or chart some new path.  It's simply effective and at times quite interesting to listen to.  Not unlike typical big budget thrillers, there is ample time devoted to a suspenseful underscore for this feature and it adds an atmospheric layer that shrouds the film well.  But here are highlights to be sure, specifically when the proceedings allowed for Dominic to write cues that were more melodic in nature (for example, the island-inspired, Emukay Jive).  In short, there is a firm direction that the story needed from the score and it's a course that is professionally charted.  If you're into the suspense genre of film music, you will find this album of interest to you.

 

Getting back to the resourcefulness of the composer -- often times I hear scores that are independently produced and it's quite easy to tell from the production value that there is little else behind it.  Dominic's output is different; the listener gets no distraction about the "how to's" of this score, rather, the music can simply be appreciated on its own.  I'm impressed by what he was able to do here and I certainly recommend that you give this album a try.  

I'd also venture to say that if you are an up-and-coming composer, this type of album can serve as a tremendous blueprint on what you can package into a score when you're doing it all on your own. 

So I invite you all to have a Bad Day, especially if you're into film noir types of scores.