Muse - The Resistance

Muse are at the point in their career where when they announce that a new album is going to be released, they can let the anticipation build. And then build some more. When the band disappeared into Matt Bellamy’s Italian lakeside practise rooms some time ago it was big news, it meant the follow up to the astronomically successful, (no pun intended), Black Holes and Revelations. Their previous album with supermassive hits, (pun definitely intended) such as Supermassive Black Hole, Starlight, and the huge live favourite Knights of Cydonia helped make one of the best albums of 2005. So with that in mind, it was surely time for a new one eh guys.

The album opens with lead single Uprising and from the first squeak of noise into the funky sounding bass that drives the song it sounds like Muse have taken a distinctly disco turn. They haven’t forgotten the powerful songs that made their name on Origin of Symmetry though with second track Resistance coming off sounding like the barstard child of Bliss from OofS and Invincible of BH&R. Second single Undisclosed Desires is next and feels the most obviously commercial. It starts with picked violins, (showing the first of Matt Bellamy’s orchestral score on The Resistance), backed by a disco beat but it is the uplifting chorus where the strange combination of disco, classical, keytar and slap bass really completes the song.

Muse have always enjoyed a bit of craziness and after a fairly serene opening and the first of many piano based melodies, showing Muse’s trend to moving away from the guitars slightly. Fortunately though the song builds into Queen style histrionics and an almost Egyptian sounding piano and strings combination, once again exposing the grandiose side of Muse. As the song ends it returns to the beautifully played piano of Matt Bellamy who gets a chance to prove his classical chops by including a piece of Nocturne in E flat major, Op. 9, No. 2, by Chopin of course… well everyone knows that right?

Next on our musical journey is Guiding Light, a song that’s pretty easy to read but rewarding nonetheless, even if it’s for the slightly Queen sounding guitar solo. The pompous, (but in a good, Muse sort of way) organs of Unnatural Selection’s intro ring out before the offspring of New Born’s heavy riff hit’s you hard in the face. By the time the song ends you feel like you need an encore, (handy since they finished their main set with it on their recent UK dates). What follows instead is the understated MK Ultra, a personal favourite for reasons I can’t entirely understand, (but I know its good alright), it’s synth based intro would be the envy of any trance band and I don’t mean that in a bad way. The album proper, by which I mean actual songs, not symphony’s linked together by one overriding theme which I’m getting to, is finished off by I Belong To You, which also has a French bit in the title Mon Cœur S'ouvre À Ta Voix meaning (apparently) , ‘My Heart opens With Your Voice’. It also cleverly samples a part from an aria of the same name, (the French bit anyway), which features in the opera ‘Samson and Delilah’. Bit of culture for you there.

The album really ends with the much talked about Symphony, Exogenesis. First part Overture opens with a movie like orchestral score, (all composed by main man Matt Bellamy), before Dom Howard’s drums signal the beginning of something really special. The apocalyptic soundtrack to a troubled time, Overture seems to signify our culture noting it’s problems and taking stock of itself, it’s lyrics ‘who are we, where are we, when are we, why are we’ really taking the confusion of the world and putting it into four simple phrases. Second part Cross Pollination is the world realising it needs someone to do something about the problems it has created before battle breaks out in a combination of strings, piano and guitar leads. The piano itself (whilst always present in Muse), feels like a throwback to it’s prevalence in their early work, circa Showbiz but as third part, Redemption shows, Matt Bellamy has really taken Muse to a new level of classical orchestration and hugeness with a hint of arrogance that will take Muse and help them build their resistance. In their own words ‘let’s start over again, why can’t we start it over again’.

A blog. But I thought you'd stopped.

No, no, I haven't stopped, you've just stopped reading. That's OK though because I have some tasty blog nuggets in store for the coming weeks.

First off I've completed the review of the latest Muse album so I'm moving on to Biffy Clyro's latest, Only Revolutions, the Muse review will be up by the end of this week at least.

Secondly, I'm seeing Them Crooked Vultures at the Hammersmith Apollo this week so a review of that seems like the obvious thing to do.

Thirdly and finally I'm going to think about moving into slightly more standard blog territory where I ramble on about my life to no one in particular. Although maybe there is someone I'm rambling to...

Thanks a lot if you did read this but if you didn't and skipped to the end, then what the hell are you doing down here, get reading the whole blog.

P.S. Buy Killing in the Name by Rage Against the Machine, partly because it's an awesome song but partly because it would be nice for the Christmas number one over here not to be the X Factor song.