CD: Touchstone Television Productions Varese Sarabande VSD-6521. Price: £12.99 to £8.99 (UK) so shop around for the best price.

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'Alias' is one of those TV series that falls somewhere between the real world and SF, largely cos of the quest for the Rambaldi artefacts, and whose resolution is going to have to be something in the fantastic to live up to what has been seen so far.


As we're going to be covering the DVD releases of 'Alias' at some other time, this is just a taster of the soundtrack from its first season. To be fair, this isn't all of composer Michael Giacchino's work. Creator JJ Abrams had his hand in coming up with the main intro music and its heartbeat theme reoccurs in the other 25 tracks on this CD.

With Sydney Bristow travelling the world, the music runs into various locales to fit the countries. What is most noticeable about some of the tracks is them running into techno-beat but it would be unfair to say that they all do that.

Having TV series music divorced from the visuals can make for an interesting experience. The pace or beats was originally designed to match the screen action. In isolation, they still have the pace but this isn't a fast album with a generous 65 minutes playing time. If you like collecting TV series soundtracks, then you'll happily add this one to your collection and no doubt go after the second series one which is already out. There's a small photo booklet with it to add to this CD's collectability. Probably more so, as it hasn't really received much publicity outside of a little series promotion.

Although it would be interesting to have an album of the other track music used in 'Alias', this has an enjoyable playing time and I'm sure many of you out there will be re-watching the series with a better ear for the music.

GF Willmetts