We never thought of Death Cab for Cutie as vampire music, but the band’s maudlin “Meet Me on the Equinox” provides an appropriately dreary intro on this soundtrack to New Moon, the sequel to last year’s hit vampire love story, Twilight. “Everything, everything ends,” sings frontman Ben Gibbard, sounding particularly pensive. It makes sense that there are plenty of goth- and electronica-inspired songs here, but the best tunes are the gentler ones. Anya Marina’s wispy “Satellite Heart” is a beautiful ballad; so are Bon Iver and St. Vincent’s sparse “Rosyln” and Thom Yorke’s moody “Hearing Damage.” While Muse hams it up a bit too much on the remix of “I Belong to You” and Hurricane Bell’s “Monsters” is way too obvious, the album is consistently solid. Even the Killers sound inspired on “A White Demon Love Song,” a track they wrote exclusively for the soundtrack.
— Jeff Niesel