‘Out of the Dark—The Film Noir Project’ by Melissa Errico Review: Music for Moody Mysteries

The singer releases a collection of songs inspired by the noir concept: melancholy, bittersweet tales of isolation and loneliness, beauty and betrayal

When most of us think of film noir, the soundtrack we hear in our heads is sultry torch singers and forlorn saxophones. Yet noir rarely sounded like that. Most of these classic crime stories of the late 1940s have much more European, symphonically driven scores, composed by émigré masters such as Max Steiner and Miklós Rózsa.

Melissa Errico’s new album, “Out of the Dark—The Film Noir Project” (Warner Music/Ghostlight Records), instead gives us noir music the way we imagine it. And on the dedicated website she put together for the album, she says that the noir concept—melancholy, bittersweet tales of isolation and loneliness, beauty and betrayal—seemed especially relevant at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.