The resulting music from Margeson for Skyline is precisely, therefore, what you'd expect to hear being churned out of the famous production house these days, but with the twist of having some clear inspiration from David Arnold. In the most basic sense, one could say that this music has all the basic ingredients and mannerisms of Steve Jablonsky's Transformers scores, but tries hard in moments of frenetic action and momentous awe to emulate the more impressively organic nature of Independence Day, an appropriate blend given the film's equal pull from both sources. In every way, Margeson competently executes his assignment, providing a score that would probably impress many if the film had been relegated to a television debut as it should have been. It uses a mixture of orchestral bravado and synthetic sampling in ways that show him to have completed his homework at Remote Control. The formula is followed with precision, from the string ostinatos to deep piano thuds, ensemble hits, lots of minor third progressions, simplistically satisfying themes, seemingly sampled voices, obnoxious alien-sounding effects, and even an Iron Man-inspired rock adaptation of the theme for the end credits sequence showing stills of promised human ass-kicking vengeance ("Damage Control"). On the positive side, the guilty pleasure moments of harmonically lovely sorrow ("Abduction" and "Ship Down") and faster variants with snare rhythms and brass heroism galore ("The Cavalry" and "Final Battle") are easy to digest and, in the latter case, exhibit the Arnold similarities. Also somewhat palatable are moments of contemplation, as in "Loss of a Friend," though these cues do nothing to rectify the film's problem with character depth and empathy. The suspense and horror portions of Skyline, on the other hand, are largely unlistenable, mostly due to the fact that their generic constructs are often overlayed with extremely challenging synthetic effects that are meant to sound alien but instead simply make you search your house to determine what major appliance is failing. Sound effects very much like this existed in John Frizzell's Alien Resurrection and are nearly impossible to appreciate as part of the music on an album experience. Other detriments to the album presentation of Skyline include a few distracting performance errors (the brass flub at 1:52 into "The Cavalry" is most unfortunate) and a non-chronological ordering of tracks on the 52-minute album that ruins the narrative flow of the composition. What's odd about the ordering of the product is that Margeson didn't even pull a Brian Tyler technique and concentrate all the best material at the start. In the end, Skyline is basic, serviceable music for a low-budget film and will appeal to those who soak up the Transformers scores in the absence of intellectual curiosity.   @Amazon.com: CD or Download