ALBUM REVIEW TIEMS: The Resistance by MUSE
Okay, so I've been TOTES waiting for this album since... their last one came out! Which was three years ago. I didn't know it was actually happening until a few months ago, though, when they started doing some crap on Twitter that no one cares about. At least I don't care about Twitter, because it is the first social networking website that I feel has COMPLETELY PASSED ME BY. I give in, Twitter: I am too old for your ways. I pass the laurels of technological hipitude down to people born after 1990 (and I guess Stephen Fry and Trent Reznor and all the other middle-aged people who seem keen on it; I will never grasp why).
First Impressions: Well done on the cover, boys! I do so love rainbows. It's some kind of kaleidoscopy thing over spacey shit, which is precisely what I expect of Muse. Also, some little dude with very stiff limbs. Walking towards... Earth? Whatever, why not. I wonder if the hexagons mean something about the New World Order.
Also, there are a LOT of songs that start with 'U' on this album. I believe that this is unprecedented for any band, since U is not that hip a letter.
The booklet has all the lyrics in it, which is good, even though Bells is a pretty clear enunciator. I was going to say 'for an English dude,' but most other nationalities, including Americans, can blow at enunciating. So you know, for a singer. He's clear.
TRACK BY TRACK. YOU CARED.
1. Uprising. I actually heard this on Monday night on the radio when I had to repark my car. I only heard the last half and recognized Bells' vox so sat to listen. At first, I was really confused and I thought it was a dance remix of a mediocre Muse song OH YEAH I did, because the chorus is wholly uninspiring. But I didn't RECOGNIZE that particular arrangement of paranoid vernacular, so I realized it must be their new tune. Then the DJ was all SO THAT WAS NEW MUSE!! WHAT!! TELL ME HOW YOU FEEL and two callers were on line to answer her. The first, some dude, said, "I liked it!" (essentially) and the second, some chick, said, "I didn't care for it at all!" and the DJ was like OKAY WELL CALL ME AND TELL ME HOW YOU FEEL. NEW MUUUUSE. And I'm like, did that just happen? Why ... ? Whatever.
THE MUSIC IS SO SEXY. There's an awesome swagger and some hand-claps and these repeated shouts of "HEY!" and "SO COME AWN!" that go against everything Muse has ever taught me. I love Matt's delivery in this song, because it's kind of sultry and catty, even though he's just talking about the usual crazy shit. Also, the melody of the chorus (heeeeeeld ouuuuuut wooooooooords) is REALLY treaded ground for Muse and that disappoints me. But hot SHIT, I love the low-string riff he plays; I thought it was Chris (bassist), but he's rumbling along behind it. So the music is really hot.
ALSO THE SYNTHS SOUND SO MUCH LIKE THE "DOCTOR WHO" THEME SONG. I TOTES FORGOT TO MENTION THIS. LOLOLOLOL. I'M MATT BELLAMY AND I WANT TO RIDE IN THE TARDIS.
LINE THAT ALWAYS STANDS OUT TO ME: "It's time the fat cats had a heart attack." LOL ENRON SUCKS, U GUYZ.
... SO COME AWN! The guitar echoes this shout at some points and it's so cute.
2. The Resistance. This starts with some ethereal low synthy choral shit and I was afraid it was going to be BORING, which would've sucked since I do love that sexxy riff in track 1. But then Dom has some good fast drums pop in and there's a very pretty little piano motif before Bells comes in with some love-related paranoia that's kind of boring again.
UNTIL THE BRIDGE. The bass is good! Well done, Chris! There's A LOT of stupid rhymes, but I can't stop singing the lines, "IT COULD BE WRONG, COULD BE WRONG, BUT IT SHOULDN'T BE RIGHT. COULD BE WRONG, COULD BE WRONG, TO LET OUR HEARTS IGNITE. IT COULD BE WRONG, COULD BE WRONG, ARE WE DIGGING A HOLE? IT COULD BE WRONG, COULD BE WRONG, THIS IS OUT OF CONTROL. IT COULD BE WRONG, COULD BE WRONG... etc." I don't even know what that shit MEANS, but the rhythm's so catchy!
And then the chorus is boring again! Boring and needlessly bombastic. Love is our resistance, our lips must always be sealed, did you know Cocoa Puffs are laced with cocaine, I can feel the chip they put in my brain.
LINE THAT ALWAYS STANDS OUT: "You'll wake the thought police!" THIS MADE ME SPUTTER. OH YEAH, HE FUCKING WENT THERE. I'M MATT BELLAMY, I'M AN ENGLISH DUDE AND I'VE READ 1984 AND IT'S TOTALLY TRUE.
There's this middle-eight part (I just call the part of songs where the singer runs out of verses and doesn't feel like repeating the chorus or bridge anymore the 'middle-eight' because I can) where he's reusing an old Muse melody again, but I guess it's okay. Then there's more ethereal shit emphasized with Dom's REALLY COOL echoey drums that sound like he was playing in, like, a... castle. I don't know.
3. Undisclosed Desires. THIS IS TOTALLY MY FAVORITE SONG because I played it like 20 times today since the next one is my least favorite and I just can't get past it most of the time. Stupid lyrics and painful rhymes: "hide/denied," "pure/sure," "heart/mask," ... wait a second, Bells! YOU'RE TRICKSY.
Okay, so like, this song starts with KICKIN' DRUMS (drummers nearly always save songs for me; this is why they are SO IMPORTANT) and then this AWESOME synth that is totally lifted from "Orinoco Flow." It's not EXACTLY the same, but it's enough like it that I LOL. And then on the chorus! AWESOME SEXXY LOW GUITAR. God, that shit is awesome.
This is one of those songs where Bells talks about love like it's a concept someone explained to him once, but he hasn't really grasped it yet. Sort of like that nerd in the back of your class in high school that no one ever talked to because he had really bad acne and was myopic, yet BRILLIANT when it came to chemistry. Or conspiracy theories.
LINE THAT ALWAYS STANDS OUT: "I want to exorcise the demons from your past." I always think he's saying 'exercise' and then I think he's going to make a PDA about walking for weight loss. This is only because I'm stupid.
I'm so glad that at the end, the music goes on the proper number of measures before cutting off. I actually was afraid they'd only do three and then chop it off prematurely and I HATE WHEN THAT HAPPENS.
4. United States Of Eurasia. I naively thought this would be the single when it was floating around the Internet in July. I downloaded it dutifully and listened to it alone in the basement, then I told Veer and Chesh when they came downstairs, "You guys have to listen to this."
AND NOT BECAUSE IT'S GOOD.
At first, you're lulled into thinking it'll work out because there's some truly nice piano from Bells (Confession: I like it more when he gets his classical piano on than I do when he gets on the sex guitar. I CAN'T EXPLAIN IT. I just love piano and he's the only person who can make me listen to classical music with rapt attention), but then he's all mediocrity with the words again, so you're like, "Okay. Nice piano!"
And theeeeeen... HELLO! WE'RE MUUUUUUSE AND WE HAVE WRITTEN A QUEEN SONGGG.
I swear to god that when a chorus of Matts sings, "There can BE ooooooooonly OOONE," it sounds like NOTHING so much as a piece of "Bohemian Rhapsody." Even the guitar behind it sounds like Queen. The entire thing is just blown out of proportion and ... it's a Queen song. Well done, boys. That hasn't been done since... QUEEN.
And of course, it's just more OH MY GOD, YOU GUYS, ORWELL MAKES ME COME, Gordon Brown is the antichrist, what the fuck, I hate the EU, yesterday I saw a Zeta mowing my lawn, it was really awkward, I offered him some lemonade and he was like, I DON'T HAVE A MOUTH, YOU FUCKHEAD. I'M AN ALIEN, and he said it to me with his MIND and he was in MY mind and so I screamed and ran back to Devon and hid under my mattress at my mum's house BECAUSE I'M MATT BELLAMY AND I NEED PSYCHIATRIC HELP.
LINE THAT ALWAYS STANDS OUT: All of them. They are so bad!
Oh, I forgot that the end of this is called "Collateral Damage," but it just sounds like some twiddly quiet shit to me. I guess it's just more of the piano? I don't know. Whatever!
5. Guiding Light. From the title, you might worry that Bells has added some twisted notion of religion to his insanity-repertoire and ... you wouldn't be far off-base. There's this seriously weird filtered synth that starts the song. It's like violins that got eaten and regurgitated. It may well be a string section that they just went to shit with in ProTools, I don't know. Probably. I think they used a 40-piece orchestra for the 3-parter at the end, so it's not outside the realm of possibility.
The lyrics are sort of a paean to some angelic person who has guided him ... somewhere. There's some long Bells falsetto and crunchy guitar emphasizing the violin shit, and the bassline from Chris is really ... functional. I actually can't seem to hear anything but the madness of violins when I listen to this, so I'ma have a peek at the lyrics booklet.
LINE THAT ALWAYS STANDS OUT: "I can't hurt you anymore." WTF??! How has he been hurting him/her before!? The rest of the song implies that this person is some salvation for a group of people, but ... dude? Are you abusing your guardian angel, Matt? DID THE ALIENS MAKE YOU DO IT? It's just a weird fucking song all around. I don't think I like it that much, all told.
6. Unnatural Selection. tee hee I'm English and I read Darwin. Matt's singing through a phone for this one. You know that effect--where they make the vocalist sound all distant and crackly like through a PA. THIS STARTS WITH GOTH ORGAN, THOUGH, AND THAT IS FUNNY. Matt sings like four lines and then RARRRR.
GUITAR, BITCHES.
RARRRR. OH YEAH I PLAY AWESOME GUITAR. AWWW SHIT YES. ... It goes on for a few measures.
LINE THAT ALWAYS STANDS OUT: "I'm hungry for some unrest!" Seriously, guys, how long has it been since we had some really good unrest up in here?! I'm hankering for a riot. PERHAPS THAT NORTHERN CHAP RICKY WILSON CAN PREDICT ONE FOR ME.
Matt says, "Woo!" after one chorus. It's very soft and cute, like he wasn't really thinking about it.
He also sings, "Ooocean" at one part (as in, "We are not droplets in the ocean!" LISTEN TO US, GOVERNMENT, OR WE WILL RIOT!) in a very deep voice heavy with gravitas and I love it because he's so tiny!
I should note that on this page of the booklet, there is a red-orange silhouette of Eurasia. Just so you know.
The final third of this song is like some crazy soul-ish shit where Matt goes all Guitar Hero and swaggers these words:
They'll laugh as they watch us crawl
The lucky don't share at all
No hope for fate
It's a random chance selection
I want the truth
Try to ride out the storm
Whilst (LOL) they'll make you believe
That they are the special ones
(We have not been chosen)
Injustice is the norm
You are not the first and you know you won't be the last
He goes back to the chorus, then he sings, I WANNNT THE TRUTH, I WANNT THE TRUTH (lol matt YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH) before crunchin' it up again. This song has great guitar! Well done, Bells!
7. MK Ultra. This is about some crazy government mind-control shit, or at least that's what the title would have you believe. The lyrics are pretty vague.
LINE THAT ALWAYS STANDS OUT: "They're breaking throuuuuugh." He repeats it like 10 times, so you can't miss it. There's a lot of non-statements, like, "Coercive notions re-evolve," and "The mind becomes a wall," and the truly awful, "All of history deleted with one stroke." Yes, Matt, that's exactly how mind control works! They delete EVERYTHING. Again with the 1984 motif. It's a bit heavy-handed for me. Usually he's more oblique. Actually, usually he's not batshit, but you know, we make do with what we get.
Lots of guitar hero on this! It sounds an awful lot like another, better Muse song to me, though, like he wasn't sure where to go. Up the frets! Up the frets! Oh, bugger, I've run out, time to stick to that last one for four measures OKAY END IT DOM SERIOUSLY THIS IS JUST EMBARASSING FOR ALL OF US NOW.
8. I Belong To You. AWESOME INTRO. It's got hand-claps and SWEET piano chords and stompin' and Matt goes, "Woo!" again before his traditional "Hummnaaaaa mmmmmmm"s. GORGEOUS use of piano, seriously. I fucking love this. He dazzles me on eighty-eight keys. There's some well-placed shimmery chimes, too!
LINE THAT ALWAYS STANDS OUT: "You're my guiding lightning strike!" SEE WHAT HE DID THUR.
This song is seriously so awesome musically that I don't give a shit about the lyrics (THERE WENT A VIBRASLAP), but I COULD do with a little less of Matt's sick-sounding "wooOOooOOOUUUGHhhh," which he employs with frustrating frequency on this record.
OH OH. "I've traveled half the world to sayyyyy... You are my muuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu......uuuuuuuuuuuuuurrgh." SEE WHAT HE ALMOST DID THERE. JUST COULDN'T BRING HIMSELF TO GET SIBILANT.
The final half of this song is called "(+ Mon Coeur S'Ouvre A Ta Voix)," which is French for "My heart belongs to Matt Bellamy's piano sounds." Or something like that. It's one of those things where he jacks some classical composition by some dead guy and adds new flourishes and just shows the fuck off because he's truly an accomplished pianist and CAN I STRESS THAT ENOUGH? IT'S AMAZING. His vocals at the end are seriously lovely, too.
CLARINET SOLO OVER THE AWESOME SONG INTRO AGAIN. God, he makes such brilliant use of orchestras! I wish other bands did this! Actually no, because then it would get boring.
I don't have more to say about this one. It's time for the three-part Exogenesis symphony that Matt's spoken of for years now.
9. Exogenesis: Symphony Part 1 (Overture). Violins! Rumbles! Horn! This is going to be another bombastic one. It sort of feels like the album shouldn't be over by now. I mean, it's NOT, but I wanted more normal songs before we hit Matt's piece de resistance. Normal dancy songs with hot guitar in them.
This is ever-so-slightly self-indulgent. The violins are pretty. Matt comes in around 1:40 with some VERY high falsetto that I can't make out at all. "TREEMMMBLING ISLAM MIIIIILE" is what I just heard.
Okay, it's a little wearing because it's like he forgot he should probably go past the intro with the violins, which are repeating the same part ad nauseum. Maybe that's the point of an overture?
Here are all the words: APING MY SOUL, YOU STOLE MY OVERTURE. TRAPPED IN GOD'S PROGRAM. OH, I CAN'T ESCAPE. WHO ARE WE? WHERE ARE WE? WHY ARE WE? WHO ARE WE? WHERE ARE WE? WHY, WHY, WHY? I CAN'T FORGIVE YOU AND I CAN'T FORGET. WHO ARE WE? WHERE ARE WE? WHEN ARE WE? WHY ARE WE IN HERE?
Conclusion: Matt got sent to the naughty corner in kindergarten once and he hasn't got over it yet.
10. Exogenesis: Symphony Part 2 (Cross-Pollination). Ooh, this my shit. Bells on piano! It's very soothing. I fell asleep to this last night, actually, which is why I did not give you a review! Bells is just having fun here. Then he sings in a lower voice, but the tremulous notes are so long I'm just catching phrases. "Toxic clouds, breech the outersphere, the edge of all..." somethings.
Halfway through, the guitar joins the party and lets us know that whatever he's saying is RLY IMPORTANT. "Spread our codes to the stars! YOU CAN RESCUE US ALL! Spread our codes to the stars. YOU MUST RESCUE US ALL. Tell us, what is your final wish? NOW WE KNOW YOU CAN NEVER RETURN. Tell us, what is your final wish? WE WILL TELL IT TO THE WORLD," according to the booklet. Damn, Bells, that's kind of creepy. The opposing page has the cover reinterpreted with the little figure heading through an atmosphere towards a mishmash of planets, so I guess it's some kind of "ooh god we're fucked" space movie concept we're rolling with.
11. Exogenesis: Symphony Part 3 (Redemption). Pretty piano continues from the last part and eventually morphs into soaring violins and rolling drums from Dom with more long-note vocals. I must say, that technique only has power when you use it more sparingly. This continues for the duration and Matt sings, "Let's start over again. Just let us start it over again. Why can't we start it over again. And we'll be good. This time we'll get it right. Last chance to forgive ourselves."
Conclusion: Matt broke the universe! Now it's over. ;_;
Aaaaand that's a wrap. Overall, I think it should've been longer and should've felt more Fucking Epic. "Exogenesis" in all its parts is still no "Knights Of Cydonia," and there's some real flops in there, like the Queen-posturing and the retread vocal/guitar motifs. But there ARE great songs on it and I can get through the whole thing without skipping... except when I get caught on "Undisclosed Desires" again.
I think it's worth $10 or an hour spent downloading the tracks on Hype Machine, if you're up for it. Definitely don't judge it by fucking "United States of Eurasia;" that one brings shame to this family. To assist you in that quest, I've put two songs on SendSpace for y'all:
Muse - Uprising.
Muse - Undisclosed Desires.
GET THEM BOTH. C'MON, IT'S FREE. They ARE huge. Sorry about that. But this is QUALITY SHIT. I'm out!
J.