CD: pub: New Line Records NLR36152. 28 tracks 60 minutes. Price: £ 8.98 (UK).

check out websites: www.newline.com, www.harrypotter.comand www.harrypotter.warnerbros.com

Another summer and another 'Harry Potter'. This one was delayed from last year thereby spoiling Christmas for many. Having no small or medium-sized child willing to take me to the cinema I have listened to the soundtrack and to the reviews of teenagers.

This CD is part of the total merchandise package and should be suitable for standalone listening. Each track is titled and there are 28 tracks of various lengths. The sleeve notes highlight how the film's director, David Yates, pushed the composer, Nicholas Hooper, to produce his vision.



Of the 28 tracks there are only two that stand out as worth listening to 'The Weasley Stomp' is the final track and 'Wizard Wheezes' isn't in the film, owes a little to Gen Krupa classics and its whole tone is upbeat and cheerful, totally unlike the rest of the soundtrack.

'In Noctem' is a pleasant vocal, with overtones of monks and not out of place in 'The Da Vinci Code'. At least it doesn't appear to be the school choir. In a couple of Potter films, the irritating choir sing a rather smug song and annoyingly none of them get splattered all over the school by Voldermort.

The third track is 'The Story Begins' which reminds me that it seems to take an age for anything to happen in a Potter film after we've had the obligatory tour of Hogwarts. Each track is named as it forms part of the incidental music of the film. It gives some of the plot away but you need to have read the books to work out what is going on at all.

The two tracks devoted to Ginny, Harry's love interest, are a milky one called unsurprisingly, 'Ginny' and 'When Ginny Kissed Harry'. I hope Harry gets more out of it than I did as a listener as it mostly made me want to sleep. It's all kept at quiet simmer and never gets to a rolling boil. Thus it carries on in much the same way and I don't think it's going to make a huge impact on the world. With sales guaranteed and the formula established there isn't a whole lot of originality possible and there are no surprises here.

Everything else just seems to wash over me and I hope the film is more exciting than this. It's bloodless and unmemorable and not something I would choose to play over again.

Sue Davies