Nas? Hold Steady? Or 'The Dark Knight' score?

The release: The soundtrack to "The Dark Knight."

The principles: Oscar-nominated composers Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard, who also worked on "Batman Begins," the first Bat-film to be directed by Christopher Nolan. Zimmer took home an Academy Award for his score to "The Lion King," and has been nominated for his work on "Rain Man" and "Gladiator." Howard has earned nominations for his work on "The Prince of Tides" and "The Fugitive."

This isn't just geeky fan-boy stuff? Naw. There's some high-profile releases this week, the latest from rapper Nas, as well as the return of glorified bar band the Hold Steady, but it can be safely argued that the most intense piece of music that hit stores on Tuesday was the opening cut to "The Dark Knight" soundtrack, "Why So Serious?" It's a pretty arresting composition, one that wouldn't be out of place in a horror film, or a Nine Inch Nails record.

So how does the music work in the film? "The Dark Knight" brings out the best in Zimmer and Howard. "Batman Begins" took a more subtle approach to scoring a superhero film, opting out of the sort of grand gothic overtures Danny Elfman brought to Tim Burton's two Bat-films, and instead decorated its scenes with sharp, minimalistic sketches -- fast and streamlined strings that lived in the shadows and echoed the mystery of its hero.

"The Dark Knight" score, to put it mildly, ratchets things up. This is apparent from the film's opening moments, an elaborately intense bank heist staged by Heath Ledger's Joker. It's here film-goers get introduced to the more than nine-minute epic that is "Why So Serious?" In an earlier Extended Play piece, Zimmer discussed how the Joker's theme is essentially one note, one that''s teased and manipulated and mimics the sounds of razors and rat-infested alleyways.

But it's also quite musical, driven by an edge-of-your-seat rhythm that slices its way around a deep, bellowing bass. There are other themes in "The Dark Knight," and tracks such as "I'm Not A Hero" and "A Dark Knight" more closely adhere to the sounds of "Batman Begins," with their flurry of repetitive string notes. Yet in much the same way Ledger's Joker performance takes control of the film, it's the music that follows his character that has a grip on the soundtrack.

No matter, as "Why So Serious?" and "Like A Dog Chasing Cars" are thrilling pieces of music. They're loud, they sound as if they're piercing through the speakers, and they're a bit demented in the way the music will cut out into mere nothingness one moment and suddenly pounce back to the forefront the next. And they go a long way toward making the 2.5-hour run time of the film soar, as the sheer tension in the music doesn't allow the audience to relax. And that's a good thing.

But does it work outside the film? Some better than others. The music that traces Harvey Dent/Two Face ("Harvey Two-Face," "Blood On My Hands") is a bit more traditional. And while it works in the film -- the Joker, after all, is the one who gets to run around the film's Chicago locales as if it's his own personal playground -- it slows the momentum of the soundtrack.

Yet then a cut such as "A Little Push" arrives, with its scraping atmospheres, nightmarish bass notes and teasing strings, and it knocks the traditional film score on its side. "The Dark Knight" has some of the most adventurous cinematic music released in recent memory, certainly since Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood tackled the score for "There Will Be Blood."

Even some of the shorter, less pronounced tracks, such as "Aggressive Expansion," offer some surprises. Almost everything is heavy on the rhythms, and come with drumbeats that sound as if they've been slightly tweaked -- check "Always A Catch," where the pounding is not quite organic, yet not quite electronic. It's fair to say that the sounds of "The Dark Knight" can be a bit in your face, but as the fast-moving and thematically schizophrenic "Like A Dog Chasing Cars" illustrates, can then burrow under your skin too.

Photo: Warner Bros.