Is there life after making music for the movies?

OF the few things that can catapult a band to stardom, none beats being featured in a film soundtrack. Painting the sonic backdrop to a supernatural teen romance has done wonders for Passion Pit (Twilight). Mumford & Sons has tried both coming-of-age girlhood (Brave) and mid-life sexual tension (Grey's Anatomy). And even Danish indie band Mew managed to squeeze itself into the Spider-Man 2 soundtrack 11 years ago. But which of them has lived up to inflated expectations since?

Wilder Mind

Mumford & Sons

Island

Rating: A-

THE visceral impact Wilder Mind makes on listeners is quite at odds with the British band's unassuming name. Opening track Tompkins Square Park is such a powerful mix of poppy A-ha, ironic Suzanne Vega and melodramatic Iron Maiden that one might expect the band to be called Starfire Express, or maybe Meteor Hearts. Certainly not Mumford & Sons, which sounds like the name of a musty London tailor. It must have seemed like a clever idea at the time, but the quartet's undoubtedly regretting it now that it has achieved critical acclaim.

An unheroic name hasn't stopped the band from crafting an exceptional third album. What's amazing is how much emotional range the quartet covers with a relatively sparse sonic palette. It's achieved this by ditching the atmospheric folk aesthetic of the past two albums for a tighter sound anchored by a rock-solid rhythm section.

The songs are unpretentiously about love and heartache. To get a feel for how drummer and lead vocalist Marcus Mumford weaves an effective spell in spite of a narrow vocal range, check out Believe and Monster. In Believe, his plaintive "Say something, something like you love me" speaks to anyone who has been in a one-sided relationship. And his quavering voice in Monster conveys dread and despair.

The deluxe version of the album comes with live versions of four tracks, but Mumford & Sons is so consistent on stage that not much differentiates these bonus renditions from the studio tracks. The one exception is Snake Eyes, which is given so much more dynamic colour that it builds up to a veritable storm of fatal attraction.

+ -

Mew

Play It Again Sam

Rating: A

When a wave of stadium-sized rock music washes over you, it usually isn't accompanied by fragile falsetto vocals. Nor is it often wrapped in catchy hooks that keep the album on repeat. But Mew's built a following doing all that and more.

With its sixth album, + -, the Danish band finally returns to what made its 2003 breakthrough record, Frengers, so irresistible. Gone are the interesting but distracting rhythmic meanderings of 2009's No More Stories and the brooding darkness of 2005's And the Glass Handed Kites. All that remains are tight, catchy tunes that don't get old. Singles Satellites and Water Slides may be better known, but there's no filler in this album. Every song's a star, from the hummable guitar riff in My Complications to the lullaby wistfulness of The Night Believer. Fans of lyrics that tell a clear story may be disappointed though. Mew's lyrics have always been abstract, but + - takes this tendency to new extremes. That doesn't means there's no story, but rather that the narratives are confined to single lines instead of entire verses.

The deluxe version of + - comes with a disc of live tracks. It's a mixed bag since Mew has always been inconsistent on stage, but will appeal to fans, thanks to some unusual arrangements that let the songs breathe. My Complications shines in a live setting. And She Spider, from the Spider-Man 2 soundtrack, drives the crowd crazy.

Kindred

Passion Pit

Columbia

Rating: C+

Where I Come From, which American indie outfit Passion Pit wrote especially for 2012's Twilight - Breaking Dawn Part 2, is a brilliant song. Michael Angelakos's falsetto perfectly captures the sense of wonder hidden amid the muddled vampire-werewolf-human love triangle. It's a pity then that neither Gossamer , released that same year, nor this year's Kindred recapture that magic. Five Foot Ten (I) and Ten Feet Tall (II) are quirky enough, while Looks Like Rain is quite hip. But none of it is truly memorable, and that's the death knell for any album. Perhaps it has something to do with Angelakos being a one-man band who only pulls in collaborators to play live. Maybe he needs creative partners to help him recapture that quality he's occasionally capable of.