Lorne Balfe is always a bridesmaid, never a bride, it seems, having composed and arranged additional music for such blockbusters as Inception, The Dark Knight, Iron Man, Transformers and Sherlock Holmes...yet never gaining a comparable amount of attention given towards his efforts against the Hans Zimmers and Steve Jablonskys of the world.
Here on his score for Ironclad, however, it seems as if perhaps Balfe's day has finally come, for the man has composed a solid 'n sturdy score, indeed; one which soundly represents this medieval Knight's Templar epic.
Ironclad seems to borrow a bit from Balfe and Zimmer's work on The Dark Knight and Inception within its percussive flow, though not overdoing things too much keeps the score steady, even and focused upon the material at hand. Balfe's mystical cues are suitably evocative, lurking in the shadows with menacing strings and dark, semi-religious choral chanting.
All of these elements come together in a score which, although not exactly hearkening back to the glory days of Basil Poledouris' Conan work, still manages to instill within the listener a grandiose sense of bravado and martial majesty. Hopefully, this will only be the first step in what will be a new era for Balfe's compositional career; a path for which Ironclad will proudly pave.
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