Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl (soundtrack)

In August 2024, it was announced that Lorne Balfe and series composer Julian Nott would compose music for Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl, the former of whom wrote additional music for The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.^[1][2] Nott provided the themes while Balfe had expanded them and also created new soundscapes and thematic materials tying to the earlier franchise themes.^[3] Much of the themes for the recurring characters would be utilized including Wallace's theme and McGraw's theme. A new theme called as the gnome theme for one of the main chracters, were also in the similar style of the film's world, which was a bit fast paced and Hollywood-slant to it making more exciting. Balfe considered Nott's musical style of "film noir, quintessential British sound and classical" music embedded within the soundscape.^[4] An ensemble 70-piece orchestra from the Budapest Scoring Orchestra recorded it live under the supervision of the musicians, the music team and the film crew, which Balfe and Nott consider it to be the exciting experience on working on the film.^[4]

The soundtrack to Vengeance Most Fowl was released on 13 December 2024 through Sony Masterworks label.^[5]

Lovia Gyarkye of The Hollywood Reporter wrote "A haywire adventure, heightened by Lorne Balfe and Julian Nott’s suspenseful score, ensues, in which the police investigate Wallace while Gromit tries to prove his innocence."^[6] Steve Henderson of Skwigly wrote "Music plays a massive role here, exciting, thrilling and delivering pangs of nostalgia throughout the film. The nostalgic rhythms are used throughout and make direct references to past films. Heroic tones when the bike from A Close Shave is unveiled, a familiar dramatic sting when Feathers confronts Wallace. If any criticism can be levelled at this film it’s that it treads old ground."^[7]

Pete Hammond of Deadline Hollywood wrote "Lorne Balfe’s and Julian Nott’s sprightly musical score adds to the fun for Wallace & Gromit devotees everywhere."^[8] Elijah Isaiah Johnson of POC Culture wrote "It’s refreshing to hear a soundtrack that is not only chock full of movement but has a unique sound palette to it as well. Individuality among musical scores feels like a dying art in a world when the landscape is dominated by cues that recall temp tracks of previously successful scores, things start to sound a bit too homogenized. Animation is one of the last areas where it feels like composers are allowed to be free to roam wherever their imagination, and the script, takes them. And Lorne Balfe seizes the opportunity; alongside Julian Nott’s continuously outstanding themes, the soundtrack is one that could live on its own, film or not."^[9]

Credits adapted from liner notes:^[10]