I had pegged Steve Jablonsky's score for Your Highness as one of my sleeper soundtrack picks for 2011. After having had a chance to listen to this album a couple of times now, I can safely say that Steve did not disappoint me in my prediction.

It's funny, more often than not, when people refer to enjoying a Jablonsky album, they typically feel inclined to say it's a guilty pleasure. Personally, I never have second thoughts or misgivings about enjoying his work because I do feel he has a thematic voice that often hits the mark. The criticism he often receives for his modern style of composing is a bit unjust, in my opinion, and it's too easy for folks to lump him in as another one of Zimmer's boys. He, like the other Remote Control composers, have a special gift for this art form and it has started to translate a little more clearly with some of the individual scoring assignments we're hearing out of their camp.

With Your Highness, Jablonsky delivers a score that can be called out for a few things. Being dull is not one of them. In a steady diet of adventure, action, and a dash of folk-fantasy elements mixed in, this soundtrack will delight Jablonsky's fans for its consistent display of color and energy, all of which is delivered in the composer's patented style. Though a comedy, and a low-brow one at that, Jablonsky kept to the tradition of "scoring it straight," taking an approach that was more action oriented that comedic. This sets up the listening experience quite nicely as one doesn't need to necessary relate this music from the film in which it hails from. If you want to juxtapose this score into a fantasy-adventure setting of your own choice, feel free to do so! Unfortunately, you can also envision some of the cues taking place in a standard action film, which leads me to my biggest complaint about this score...

Where Your Highness comes up short is when it veers toward a music library type of vibe. For instance, some of the cues on the back end of the album sound as if they were plucked from a trailer music album or some production music library set. Very much a modernized setting that the music is grounded in here. For me, the score for a film like this shouldn't transition into "Peacemaker" mode, it should retain its source properties.

Overall, however, there is too much that I enjoyed from this album to dismiss it or critique it too severely. The sheer energy alone was enough to sweep me up into repeat listens. I guess it was my turn to have a Jablonsky score that is a guilty pleasure!