'Goal!' - Original Soundtrack (Big Brother Recordings) Released 03/10/05

Name three songs devoted to the great sporting game that is Football - three songs that capture the loyalty, the anticipation, the passion, the anguish, the glory. Hell, name one. Van the Man once wrote - "Kicking off from centre field, question of being down for the game..." - and this OST sticks like a fishbone in the throat, a player that held the potential, but was down for the big game. If there's no artists out there capable of writing songs devoted to the game in a popular idiom in a manner Andrew Lloyd Weber did for the stage, then there's holes to be filled. What this album delivers is all the adrenaline-fuel to bolster the movies  Hero - a Mexican Illegal Immigrant in the U.S. with dreams of a place in a Premiership team, no less. So, there's lots of Rock-platters on offer - stompa, guttural, broody, testosterone-fuelled, anthemic - obvious, mostly.

Happy Mondays bring forth a brand new track to help swell the coffers (and who knows how they'll spend the money?!!), Shaun singing with flourish - "I'm a superstar, the playground kid..." with all the Monday's trademarks, whilst Oasis get tapped for three tracks (new and old). There's moments where the selection comes off for a well deserved 'prawn sandwich' - with UNKLE featuring Joel Cadbury on 'Leap Of Faith', a top atmospheric-chewn with beats-a-plenty, swollen strings (by The London Philharmonic Orchestra) and chugging guitar that'll have the dance floors swinging from the rafters. The Bees bring to the proceedings a Byrds-like jangly-sounding track with rolling bar-room piano on 'This Is The Land' which aims like a ray of sunshine. Graeme Revell ushers two scores that soothe the adrenals, whilst Kasabian offer  'Club Foot', a goal box scramble of a track without shin pads or a referee. Zero 7 have the pleasant and polite 'Look Up', whilst Princess Superstar out foul-mouths the boys with 'Wet! Wet! Wet!' - giving voice to her nether-region, and we're not talking groin-strain.

There's morsels to be found, to be sure. But this reviewer feels short-cheated, the opportunity missed for a truly 'original' soundtrack. There's little nuance and even less reference to 'the beautiful game'. It's an album that could have been cherry-picked from most post-adolescent males sporting music-files and there's little that stands up on its own for imagistic quality.