END OF DAYS: SOUNDTRACK		Review by E.C.McMullen Jr.
SHOULD YOU? TIP JAR END OF DAYS MOVIE REVIEW END OF DAYS: Soundtrack - 2000 Geffen Records Various Artists

END OF DAYS was supposed to be Arnold Schwarzenegger's comeback vehicle. All of us fans who remembered and loved his work in TERMINATOR and T2, as well as PREDATOR, THE RUNNING MAN, and TOTAL RECALL wanted to believe in the hype, even though the movie was directed by Peter Hyams, a director with a most speckled film history.

Okay, the movie failed on many points but, just like LAST ACTION HERO, though the movie wasn't so hot, the soundtrack smokes.

The album starts off with KORN doing their "Camel Song". Within the context of this album, the song is a good start. Especially since the following band is

EVERLAST which turns in one hell of a heavy duty song with "So Long". This piece is Heavy Metal in words with the slow musical accompaniment that sounds more like the inexorable pace of an approaching predator than anything brutal or crazed comes close to accomplishing. Rock Mixer without Equal, Charlie Clouser, weighs in to give the song the proper "body".

PROFESSIONAL MURDER MUSIC with their song "Slow" and LIMP BIZKIT with "Crushed" hold up the album well in their turn, both providing atmosphere for the coming chaos of the unrelenting fallen angel that END OF DAYS is all about.

GUNS N' ROSES returns from the void to do "Oh My God" a bizarre bit totally creative and completely out of whack with anything from anyone else. This is GUNS N' ROSES from back when they were being themselves, before they started craving that radio airplay and marketing demographics. Sounds like Frank Zappa through a G N' R filter, which is a good thing.

PRODIGY does "Poison" in typical PRODIGY style. Dance-able, but nothing fresh for them.

A Charlie Clouser remix of ROB ZOMBIE's "Superbeast" gets some more Soundtrack time. Since this is Clouser doing the mix, that ain't a bad thing, though you might be sick to the teeth of the overexposure of the never ending remixes of Zombie music.

EMINEM does "Bad Influence" and twists the album around on its ass. If he had come from the 50's he would have laid the Beat Generation to waste. If he had come from the 60's, he would have knocked the Mort Sahl's and Lenny Bruce's right off the stage. If he had come from the 70's, he would have been ignored, same as the 80s. But EMINEM is here and now and is hilarious, outrageous and the equal of any political comic or band. EMINEM is deadly accurate truth and insanely funny all at the same time. This song would be the perfect voice for the cross - eyed albino demon in the movie.

POWERMAN 5000 does "Nobody's Real". Its a good song, has nothing to do with the movie, but is a good song.

STROKE gets back to the atmosphere of what this movie is all about with "I Wish I Had." A perfect accompaniment to the mindset of Jericho Kane, even if it is kinda Bowie.

Old chestnut from SONIC YOUTH, dating back to 1992 with "Sugar Kane". The music is good and still stands with the current sound, but doesn't really add anything to the soundtrack. Feels more like filler.

CREED winds up the album with "Wrong Way" and is the perfect ending to this soundtrack and movie. Altogether an excellent soundtrack. Perhaps Peter Hyams should have listened to this collection of songs before he even started on the movie. Might have put him in the right mindset.

4 Perplex Skulls.

This review copyright 2000 E.C.McMullen Jr.

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