Most film score fans know the brilliant Canadian composer Howard Shore for his masterpieces: the three symphonic scores for the Lord of the Rings trilogy. They are his crowning achievement, released in multiple incarnations on disc and regularly performed live in concert halls around the world. In addition, there are his epic follow-up scores for The Hobbit trilogy.

Beyond that, he is probably best known for composing the scores for nearly all of Canadian director David Cronenberg’s films and for being the master of serial killer films in the 1990s, musically plumbing the depths of the human soul in his brilliant scores for The Silence of the Lambs, Se7en, and The Cell.

However, Shore’s filmography is far more wide-ranging than many casual fans may be aware. The man who brought us the sweeping orchestral grandeur of LOTR also gave us the sweet, playful sounds of the Tom Hanks classic Big. He found the aural definition of evil in Se7en, but he also scored the lightness of High Fidelity and Analyze This.

All of this brings us to Shore’s score for the largely forgotten Sharon Stone erotic thriller Sliver, which has recently been released on a fantastic new CD by La-La Land Records. Sliver came out in 1993, which was a fascinating year for Shore, demonstrating a cross-section of the scores he was doing at the time.

That year found him working on the tawdry thrills of both Sliver and the similar Sidney Lumet sex thriller Guilty as Sin (everyone was unsuccessfully trying to re-create Basic Instinct then), as well as Cronenberg’s transgender Chinese love story M. Butterfly, the Robin Williams classic Mrs. Doubtfire (for which Shore crafted one of his warmest, most beautiful, and innocent scores), and Jonathan Demme’s groundbreaking AIDS drama Philadelphia.

No one will argue that Sliver is one of Shore’s most important scores, but all of Shore’s varied works are worth exploring both because of the level of craft he brings to them and because it’s often possible to hear hints of his signature style in the most unlikely of places. He’s a master composer, and there are riches to be found within his score for Sliver.

As the liner notes to the CD explain, the film was a clear attempt to re-create the lightning in a bottle that was Basic Instinct by putting Sharon Stone in another sexy thriller. The results were obviously not the same, partly because Stone was cast not as a vampish femme fatale but as a timid book editor. The film itself was most known before its release for the promise that it would be the most explicit studio film ever released – with so much female and male nudity that everyone in the audience would presumably combust from the sheer sexual ferocity on screen.

Needless to say, the finished film disappointed on that level – and on most others – and was quickly consigned to video bargain bins.

Shore’s score has unjustly been largely forgotten in his catalog because it was never released on CD. There was a soundtrack album at the time, but it only included the film’s pop songs – a mix of existing material, including Massive Attack’s “Unfinished Symphony,” which was a keynote piece in the film’s musical world, and new tracks, including a cover of “Can’t Help Falling in Love” by the band UB40 – that was more successful than the film ever was. The album also included two original tracks from the new age group Enigma. The liner notes tell us that the original intention was for the film to not have a score… or that the minimal score could be provided by Enigma.

Eventually, it was decided that the film needed a conventional orchestral score, and Shore was brought in. He starts the score off in the track “Main Title” with gorgeous strings and harp, but soon a fun, sleazy synth beat enters, along with a noir-ish trumpet. This is clearly going to be an enjoyably, tawdry, lush affair that doesn’t take itself too seriously. Shore’s music soon takes an over-the-top tense twist in “Naomi’s Fall,” as the melodrama of the film begins.

In later tracks, Shore’s unique sound is instantly recognizable. “Carly Meets Zeke” could easily be an outtake from LOTR, whereas “Telescope” is a close cousin to his The Silence of the Lambs score. There’s also a lovely three-note motif, which I hesitate to even call a theme, that gets introduced in “Microfiche” and repeated later in multiple tracks, which is surprisingly moving and tinged with longing. It reappears in “The Rose” after an introduction of gorgeous, tremulous strings that are reminiscent of Shore’s masterful scores for David Fincher’s The Game and Panic Room.

Many of the cues are fairly brief, but there are standout examples, such as “First Sex,” which reprises the material from the opening titles in a surging series of jazzy waves.

As the score nears its end, it gets more emotional and intense, with tracks like the dramatic “Vida’s Death,” which brings back that same three-note motif in a more urgent and thrilling form, and the exciting “Carly Sees Vida” and “The Fight.”

It’s in this final portion that the score is at its most powerful, as all the motifs that have been introduced war with one another in beautiful musical conflict… like the film’s characters.

The unused cue “The End” brings things to a mournful, uncertain conclusion that sounds exceptionally similar to the final cue of The Silence of the Lambs before concluding with a much more ominous version of the synth line heard at the beginning of the film.

The score is gorgeous and lyrical without ever being fully melodic. You won’t finish the disc humming any memorable main themes like you do with LOTR, but that isn’t the intention. Instead, you’ll be seduced by an hour of prime Howard Shore, most of which has not been heard since 1993.

Indeed, some of the music has never been heard before at all. The film famously had bad test screenings, requiring extensive reshoots. When it still tested badly after Shore’s score was added, composer Christopher Young was brought in to replace about 11 minutes of Shore’s finale. It was Young’s music that was heard over these scenes in the finished film.

Luckily, LLL includes both Shore’s entire score along with Young’s rescored cues as bonus tracks. It’s hard to believe that anyone thought Young’s music alone could save the film, but it’s interesting to hear what two talented composers brought to the same footage.

The Young tracks are an intriguing addition. He’s a gifted composer in his own right, but his version of the cue “Microfiche” suggests he was copying a temp track of James Horner’s score for Patriot Games, directed by Sliver‘s Phillip Noyce for Paramount just the year before. The rest of Young’s cues are more atmospheric synth tones, beats, and soundscapes than full orchestral music, with just a touch of electric guitar over his final cue.

Of all of Shore’s unreleased scores (and there are still FAR too many), I never imagined Sliver would be given new life by LLL. However, I had only seen the film once, soon after its release, and the score was overwhelmed by the pop songs and other music.

Given its own album on which to shine, it’s a thrill to rediscover Shore working at the height of his powers in a big-budget studio thriller. La-La Land’s CD is HIGHLY recommended for any fans of Howard Shore’s music. It was only produced in a very limited run of 1,000 copies, so pick it up soon before it’s gone.

You’ll hear definite hints of the musical phrases and tones that Shore used in The Silence of the Lambs and would later return to in the LOTR trilogy, so this is a fun album for fans of those scores. It’s fascinating to realize you know a composer’s vocabulary enough to hear him speaking with the same voice in such a wildly different genre. The music here is all completely appropriate for a raunchy 90s sex thriller, but it still bears Shore’s unmistakable imprint.