The film's executive producer, Bruce Timm, asked three of today's best film score composers to contribute music. As Christopher Drake says, none of them knew what the others would be doing. "The three of us were sequestered from each other, allowing each of us complete creative freedom." By and large, the results are interesting.

Chris Drake has scored the two animated Hellboy films, as well as the game Hellboy: The Science of Evil. His segments on this film are "Have I Got A Story For You" and "In Darkness Dwells," which was written by David Goyer, who co-wrote the screenplays for Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, of which you may have heard.

Kevin Manthei is no stranger to animated scoring, either, having written the music for the recent Kung Fu Panda and worked as series composer for the late, lamented TV show Invader Zim, among others. Robert Kral, too, has chops in this genre, being known for his work on Duck Dodgers, for which he won an Annie Award.

Many styles, many good moments

The first story is told from the point of view of several skater kids whose individual tales make up one narrative. Christopher Drake has admitted that, as a 35-year-old white guy from Arizona, "authentic hip-hop music is not exactly my forte." As a guitarist, however, he has laid out some riffs that fit pretty well. "In Darkness Dwells" uses arpeggiated synths and electronically processed percussion to link, stylistically, with the two recent series reboot movies. Drake's work here is strong and effective.

Kevin Manthei contributes to "Crossfire" and "Working Through Pain." In the former, two cops with opposing views of the city's new crime fighter get trapped during an assignment. Manthei here uses a duduk, an Armenian woodwind, because "it represent(s) the humanity of the police officers in a land that lack(s) humanity." In the latter cue, Bruce Wayne is in India seeking ways to deal with his suffering. Told in flashback with the badly injured Batman trying to climb out of a sewer, the cue utilizes traditional Indian instruments.

Robert Kral scores "Field Test," in which the Batman tests a new suit that can resist armor-piercing bullets, and "Deadshot," about an assassin with a camera eye. These two cues seem to take a fair bit of inspiration from Danny Elfman's work on the Tim Burton Batman films, with Kral providing some solid action work and contributing excellent piano passages.

All in all, there's plenty of goodness to be had here from these three men, with Drake perhaps coming out the best. But the listener is the real winner.