Can’t let it go?

HERE’S WHAT every parent of young children needs to know (or fear?): Is there a new Let It Go on the soundtrack for Frozen 2.

Improving or matching the first movie’s songs was an almost impossible task for songwriters Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez.

They’ve offered seven originals, and they’re all lovely, rooted in traditional Broadway structures and each playing a key role in keeping the film moving.

None will match the chart success of Let It Go, but they deserve to be cherished on their own merits.

Like in the first film everyone gets a song: Josh Gad’s Olaf sings his comedic When I Am Older, Idina Menzel gets the roof-raising (closest thing to Let It Go) Into the Unknown, Jonathan Groff’s Kristoff has the melancholy (and slightly reminiscent of a lost tune by the band Chicago) Lost in the Woods and Kristen Bell’s Anna closes it out with the mournful The Next Right Thing.

But this time Evan Rachel Wood — as Elsa and Anna’s dead mother — sings All Is Found and joins Menzel on Show Yourself.

One nice touch is all four leads singing together in the sweet

Some Things Never Change, which, with its refrain of “I’m holding on tight to you” is the inverse of Let It Go. But missing are the inventive lyrics from the first, the “frozen fractals all around” and “Bees’ll buzz/kids’ll blow dandelion fuzz.” The lyrics are straightforward, less playful. It’s a more emotional album than the first, more mature and internal. Three songs play over the end credits. Panic! at the Disco superbly recast Into the Unknown as a glam rocker, Kacey Musgraves does a rootsy version of All Is Found, and Weezer does a very Weezer take on Lost in the Woods. The soundtrack is wonderful, but has unattainably big snowshoes to fill.

Mark Kennedy