by Tim DiGravina Angelo Badalamenti's string and flute heavy score to director Paul Schrader's The Comfort of Strangers is mournful and lush but lacking in variation. When set against the movie's potent imagery of Venice, Italy, the music creates pockets and valleys of pure tension. Extracting the music from the film and listening to it as an album is another story. The same melodies run through too many of the tracks, creating a rather tedious experience. Further, it's obvious by the pace and uneven tone of some of the compositions that the music is cued to particular actions in the movie; on an album, such cues make little sense, as a tense flute passage leads to an immediate percussive attack. The slow, Middle East meets Italy texture of the music seems inspired by Nino Rota's score to The Godfather and the work of Ennio Morricone. Similar to the movie's themes, the music acts like a paranoid cobra, seemingly ready to strike from any dark corner. There is tension and beauty to the music, but the lack of melodic variation ultimately drags down the album. Badalamenti's music, in this instance, is best heard accompanied by the film.