Three weeks ago, seven and a half minutes of the movie's musical accompaniment made its way online, thirty seconds per-track included on the official motion picture soundtrack.  Now, though, each of those tracks is represented by around a full minute of previewed listening.  If you avoid looking at the track listings, it's spoiler-free listening.  Even if you do look at the tracks, it's not such a big deal.

As befits the movie's wintertime setting, the score is somewhat icier than its predecessors, which Zimmer created in collaboration with James Newton Howard.  Since Zimmer's going solo this time out, the music has a more distinctive identity when compared to Batman Begins and The Dark Knight.  One track even feels distinctly reminiscent of The Chromatics's "Tick of the Clock" from the Drive soundtrack.  Still, as the score progresses, it reprises familiar themes from both the prior movies in this trilogy, particularly the first film.

Last month, Hans Zimmer was hired to compose the score for Man of Steel, the Zack Snyder-directed, Christopher Nolan-executive produced reboot of the Superman franchise featuring a story by Nolan and his Batman Begins co-writer David S. Goyer.

Goyer also gets a story by credit on The Dark Knight Rises, with a screenplay chalked up to Nolan and his brother, Jonathan Nolan, who received sole screenplay credit on The Dark Knight.

As you're well aware, Anne Hathaway, Tom Hardy, Marion Cotillard, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt join the party in Gotham City this time around.  They're playing with franchise regulars like Christian Bale, Gary Oldman, Michael Caine, and Morgan Freeman, all of them closing the door on their familiar characters as the trilogy wraps up.  It does so in regular theaters and on IMAX screens this July 20th.