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Beltrami is no stranger to the horror genre, and while he received much assistance from his team for the 2018 movie, his credit for A Quiet Place: Part II relegates his assistant writers to a more secondary role by credit. Because most of the sequel occurs in the same moments as the first movie, there was no need to significantly alter the environment for the second score, though the opportunity to create false comfort in the early, pre-invasion scenes was lost. Much of the same instrumental and thematic approach is reapplied by Beltrami, though it's also important to recognize that he altered the soundscape and thematic core to accentuate a sense of a little more organization and optimism for humanity. In short, that decision yields more accessible music. The employment of detuned piano and troubled string solos persists in A Quiet Place: Part II, as do the brass and synthesizer techniques for the aliens. But the work is not as abrasively atonal and frightening as the prior score, even the horror passages more organic. The thumping heartbeat effect common to genre scores is frequent in latter half action but not defining. Electronic sound design does occupy some of the more suspenseful moments, as in "Entering the Station." The orchestral presence is not particularly deep, the ensemble still rather small in size for a major feature film. Beltrami puts a fair amount of effort into expanding the melodic base of the first score, reprising all the major ideas from A Quiet Place and adding a pair of new identities. The pitch-slurring techniques for the aliens return at 0:19 into "From the Beginning" and increase in intensity during "Training Day" before a long crescendo late in "Emmet's Realizations." Their descending four-note phrasing doesn't carry over, however. The established chasing motif of chopping on key is reprised in "Watch Us Run" and at the outset of "Moving In." The family theme is the core of these works, Beltrami taking its sparse constructs and manipulating them into a perseverance motif variant by "Kids Bonfire" in the first score. The "A Quiet Family" performance on detuned piano returns wholesale in "Family Ties," but it's the family's perseverance variation budding out of this melody that really shines here.

The family's perseverance theme in A Quiet Place: Part II toils with restraint on solo strings in "Regan On Her Own" before expanding to warmer solo woodwind shades at 0:13 into "Mother and Child," the theme occupying most of that cue. A more explicit resurrection of "Kids Bonfire" is presented in the comparatively buoyant "A Grateful Family," the idea executed with almost Carter Burwell-like emphasis on each note, extremely deliberate and sparsely rendered until a fuller climax with a suspense finale that suggests more sequels to come. Beltrami is likely establishing that the perseverance variant of the melody is actually its native form and that the defeated "A Quiet Family" version was a deconstructed ghost of that identity. Two new themes are presented, both of them vaguely connected to the family theme. The first is an inverted form of the "A Quiet Family" theme in "Show Me Your Face" and "Emmet's Realizations" that offers significant creepiness in how it alters certain notes. Arguably the main new theme of A Quiet Place: Part II is one featured in two important scenes during the narrative. First, as the family leaves their homestead in the aftermath of the prior film's events, Beltrami takes an idea loosely based off of figures in the "Kids Bonfire" cue to form a new melody on sparse strings with detuned piano lines underneath. This exact performance is reprised in "Encouraging Feedback," where it transitions to more tonal, positive territory. Roughly a third of the score remains dedicated to the straight horror element, however, "Moving In," "You Scream You Die," and "Entering the Station" all applying the same tired techniques of fright that had occupied the previous score. Little new is to be heard in these passages. Overall, however, the unlistenable portions of A Quiet Place: Part II are fewer, and Beltrami finally infuses some weightier hints of warmth throughout via a more organic, orchestral presence. The brevity of the score yields a 37-minute album available digitally and on a limited CD run from La-La Land Records, and the presentation may not be substantial enough to recommend despite better accessibility than its predecessor. Beltrami is slowly revealing an attractive melodic core to this concept as the humans gain their footing, and the intelligence with which he shifts his tone during this transformation earns his work a third star.   @Amazon.com: CD or Download

• Music as Written for the Film:  ***
• Music as Heard on Album:  **
• Overall:  ***

Bias Check:

For Marco Beltrami reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 2.75 (in 28 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 2.8 (in 19,012 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.