After the success of things like Titanic and the recent resurgance for doing big budget disaster films of the type that Irwin Allen used to do in teh 1970's, it seemed only natural that an album cataloguing the music would appear. Varese have done a commendable job of selecting (admittedly obvious) good choices for the album. The first three cues are from the mid-70's classic John Williams score to The Towering Inferno which is only currently available on LP if you want the original score. I would say that they certainly picked the best three cues. The Main Title is a propulsive and percussive backed cue that honestly doesn't imply as much doom as would be expected, but is almost uniquely optimistic and even if it's not exactly the John Williams of today, it demonstrates that he was always a good composer even if his style as altered hugely in the last almost 3 decades. The second cue, Planting the Charges and Finale is a long slow burn action cue which never gets quite as exciting as I'd expect, but it's certainly given a suitably exciting performance. An Architect's Dream threatens to get a little too close to the lounge jazz style that some of the original score has (a style which I must be honest and admit that I pretty much loath), but this track works nicely, even if it does seem strange that they decided not to end the suite with a bang. The other Williams selections on the CD aren't quite as good, Earthquake manages to muster up a great deal more doom than Towering Inferno as does his pretty unexciting prelude to The Poseidon Adventure.
Twister was a pretty lame film by any standards, but somehow Mark Mancina managed to fashion an extremely enjoyable not quite Zimmer action score, but this cue highlights the "sweeping plains" opening title and is given a gutsy performance, even if it's not quite as pacey as the original soundtrack recording. The two duelling volcano movies, Dante's Peak and Volcano got scores of variable quality with the approaches being somewhat different. Dante's Peak had a pretty scarey score which rather implied horror as opposed to Alan Silvestri's threatening, marching lava music. I must admit that James Newton Howard would never be my first pick for a tunesmith and so his contribution to the Main Title from Dante's Peak is somewhat negligable and mostly the music is sold on orchestral effects which means the track makes little impact after the event. Silvestri's March of the Lava, on the other hand is exciting, tuneful and is filled with wailing Goldenthal-style horn trills and slicing strings which muster up a great deal more doom than Frizzel's effort. Certainly, Silvestri's writing is getting better and better these days. The other contribution by Newton Howard is in the form of a lengthy cue from Outbreak which is a film I've not seem, but has something to do with the ebola virus or something. This cue isn't too bad, but nothing earth shatteringly exciting to be honest, just appears and then you suddenly realise that David Arnold has appeared in the shape of his foundation shattering music from Independence Day. This cue is slightly longer than the original due to a few passages that were cut from the original album being included, although they don't add much to be honest, however the altered isntrumental balance does provide some interesting listening as previously drowned out instrumentation is able to come to the fore, especially with a few horn passages.
Jerry Goldsmith gets a brief look in with the end title to The Swarm which is suitably heroic and exciting and still sounding like Rudy Possibly the biggest downer of the album is the lengthy suite from Titanic which is taken from a previous compilation and to be frank, the more I listen to it, the more I absolutely hate it. From the horrible brass flubs here and there to the far too loud chorus and unromantic, romantic sections, it's just rather horrible overall. I think that John Debney just went for overkill rather than the subtlety in the conducting by Horner on the original album. Perhaps best to end this particular CD after Independence Day.
As to whether to recommend the album, it's a difficult decision since it's generally well performed, provides a reasonably decent selection and the Towering Inferno suite is definitely worth a listen. However, apart from that and the cue from The Swarm, all the re-recorded tracks are from previous albums and so if you have them, there's not a great deal of point in the investment, unless you're a hardened Williams fan out for the Inferno selection (which is pretty lengthy.) I guess as an album on it's own then I must commend it since apart from Titanic it's a good cross breed albeit with few surprises.
Rating ~ 
Total Time ~ 69:35