DAVID SHIRE Zodiac Varese Sarabande ****

In choosing the 70-year-old maverick David Shire to score Zodiac, the infamously perfectionist director David Fincher found the ideal composer for his dark thriller about the notorious 1970s Californian serial killer. Shire's signature fusion of funky jazz and cool serialism, with its dynamic combination of jittery energy and urgent tenderness, defined the gritty paranoia of the period, particularly in his genre-defying scores for The Conversation, The Taking Of Pelham One Two Three and All the President's Men. While Zodiac recalls the edgy mood of The Conversation and All the President's Men, its abrupt melodies, nervy pulses and lean orchestration sound both vintage and new, achieving an exquisite brooding melancholy - the haunting Graysmith's Theme and the driving Closer & Closer are Shire in his prime. www.colosseum.de JOCELYN CLARKE

Download tracks: Graysmith's Theme. Closer & Closer