Ambition, when untethered from practicality, produces the kind of decadent artistic expression that I crave and the spaghetti western delivers. Rev Hank’s El Camino De Los Muertos is a gunslinger that chooses a strange and beautiful hill to die on, located in the Italian countryside, masquerading as the wild west.
Why would anybody write an original soundtrack for a movie that doesn’t exist? Complete with orchestration? With examples of incidental, non-thematic material? Its purpose is lost on me and that’s probably my favourite part of this project.
If you are left scratching your head as to the what and the why of this record, made by your local Urban Surf King Rev Hank, here is some supplementary reading to catch you up: Sergio Leone was a visionary filmmaker and auteur who created an entire genre of nuanced film in the 1960s that depicted a grittier version wild west than his predecessors and all from his back door in Italy (I suggest watching A Fistful of Dollars for a classic of the genre and Once Upon a Time in The West if you want to watch Leone get meta and deconstruct his style).
Ennio Morricone, the man who scored A Fistful of Dollars and every subsequent Leone western, utilized fender guitars and found sounds (gunshots, whips, coyote yelping) to pad out what was a skinny budget for the orchestra. The result influenced rock and roll instrumental performance with the high-fidelity, reverb-soaked, dark baritone melodies providing big-time energy and vibe.
This homage to Morricone’s style is loving and accurate. The guitar tone is nailed so hard it might as well be a wanted poster at the sheriff’s office in the kind of town where they take the sidewalk in at dusk. The orchestration is also expertly crafted with all of the space and mood of its source material left intact.
The fabricated soundtrack even comes complete with a film description.
“He had one last run to make then it was done. His route – El Camino de los Muertos. He had no choice. He promised her, and he was a man of his word. They said it was impossible. They had not counted on someone like him.”
Compositional highlights are certainly “The Theme” from El Camino de Los Muertos, “Time to Fight Time to Die”, and “Under Sonoran Stars”. These three pieces provided good contrast from one another and kind of run the gamut of moods the genre can generate.
Where this release happens to fall short for me is the sound of the orchestration can break the illusion. While I blame no one for having to use digital representations of orchestral instruments at the best of times in order to conform to a reasonable budget – let alone during a global pandemic that threatens to collapse the music industry – I found myself sometimes taken out of my western fantasy by a less than discrete Hammond Organ sound or string section that couldn’t quite convince me.
Overall, however, this is a fun release. If one were to light a candle, maybe burn some government grown incense and close their eyes, a whole movie starring Clint Eastwood might play out before them. Rev Hank gets high marks for putting together what I think is an ambitious work that never feels like it’s burdened by its genre, instead plays well within its own limitations.