While not entirely original, Battle Beyond has more than it's fair share of terrific moments, even though the orchestra has trouble handling anything that comes close to being difficult to play. Fortunately, Horner is not the kind of composer to write insanely difficult material. The most difficult music to play on here is almost always played by the trumpets. In fact, there are many rather difficult fanfares that would be expanded on in Horner's later score for Krull. While it has been rather common knowledge to soundtrack collectors that Horner himself has never been entirely enthused about releasing this score on album because of the bad performance, I can honestly say that I am incredibly glad that it finally *has* been released on CD. Though parts of the performance may be sloppy, no part is so bad as to make any of the score unlistenable.

The Humanoids from the Deep section of the album is not nearly as interesting to collectors or probably even hardcore Horner fanatics, but it is a nice inclusion in the long run. It has better sound quality and a better performance, but unfortunately it seems that Horner was much less interested in writing and what we're basically left with is nothing more than a generic and typical horror score, with nothing particularly noteworthy occuring for its entire duration. This isn't surprising since the movie was little more than an excuse to have naked women running around.

The CD is blessed with very good packaging. There are some pretty decent pictures in the insert (including one of Horner from 1983) and some decent liner notes with excerpts from an old Horner interview with Soundtrack Magazine.