THIS soundtrack features some old time American obscurities on a par with those that featured on my favourite soundtrack in years - O' Brother Where Art Thou?

The only thing that lets Gangs Of New York down is the big Enya style strings that appear imperative to achieve a cinema blockbuster.

Having said that, this album will entertain you for much longer than the Lord of The Rings soundtrack - also featuring moaning quasi-Irish-folk.

Gospel Train by The Silver Leaf Quartet and Signal To Noise by Peter Gabriel stand out as two of the best on the album.

Meanwhile, U2's The Hands That Built America doesn't.

The music on the album comes directly from the record collections of Martin Scorsese and Robbie Robertson. They seem to have quite an interesting mix of genres and styles between them, and certainly some of the tunes are leftfield.

Two and a half Globes out of five. ETM