Album review: Various artists: 'The Twilight Saga: New Moon Original Motion Picture Soundtrack'

At a conservative estimate, around 30million people saw the first Twilight film (and that’s from the base of 70million who bought the novels) worldwide, and the figure will surely rise for New Moon. Think about those numbers: there isn’t a single media outlet around that can reach so many kohl-eyed young consumers.

Just as the curators of Guitar Hero etc have become the new kingmakers, Alexandra Patsavas, ‘music supervisor’, is turning the movie soundtrack into a 21st century Peel Session of sorts. So – phew – this collection doesn’t suck.

Thom Yorke’s unsettling rumble ‘Hearing Damage’ is dark without layering on the pathos, and Anya Marina’s ‘Satellite Heart’ is all sweetly plucked acoustic guitar and tales of being lost in love. Grizzly Bear and Beach House’s Victoria Legrand imbue ‘Slow Life’ with a glow of aching longing, and ‘Possibility’ from Lykke Li is an evil joy dusted with Li’s breathy vocals, but the biggest treat comes from the unlikeliest source. ‘Shooting The Moon’ from Ok Go (!) is both introspective and massive , with planet-sized drums thumping behind the heartsore musings of what sounds like one dude plucking a guitar as the apocalypse rains down.

It’s a shame, then, that The Killers’ ‘A White Demon Love Song’ sounds half-finished and limp, while ‘No Sound But The Wind’ from Editors is so textbook it boggles the mind how the miserablists can cannibalise themselves again. Moreover, Muse’s remix of ‘I Belong To You’ only adds more baroque madness to an already overwrought canvas. As an album, the moments of intelligent beauty aren’t quite obscured by the gloom-by-numbers and, considering how rabidly commercial this really is, that’s something of a little victory.