Muse – The Resistance (or 1984: The Sci-Fi Rock Opera)

Not out ’til Monday, but if you’re a member, you can listen to the whole thing at muse.mu (and see the lyrics), otherwise you can hear it all at The Guardian.

Here’s what I think:

Uprising – You’ve probably already heard this. It provides a good thumping start to the album and was quite a good sing-along at Teignmouth, but it’s currently my least favourite song on the album, I like the vocals in the verse, but the chorus is kinda boring, and I don’t like the high pitched Doctor Who sound. Plus it goes on a bit, it would annoy me less if it stopped at around 3 minutes rather than 5.

Resistance – This reminds me of Starlight, but it’s better (imho). The lyrics are clearly influenced by Orwell’s 1984 (“You’ll wake the Thought Police”), and is Matt going a bit soft? (“Love is our resistance”)

Undisclosed Desires – If you don’t like bands to change, and just wanted Muse to make Origin of Symmetry again, this probably isn’t for you. If the vocals in the chorus were a bit more upbeat, I could imagine it being played in a club. It’s a step further in the progression from classic Muse beyond Supermassive Black Hole and Map of the Problematique. I like it.

United States of Eurasia (+Collateral Damage) – Muse pay homage to Chopin and Queen in the same song using the Arabic scale (that’s what Zane Lowe calls it anyway, I’m not sure about the technical accuracy, but it gives you an idea). The lyrics came from Matt reading Zbigniew Brzezinski’s The Grand Chessboard, in which a former U.S. Presidential Advisor tells how the U.S. deliberately acts to stop Eurasia uniting because of a fear that, should it happen, a war with the U.S. would be inevitable.

Guiding Light – Apparently if you isolate the drums you can hear a neighbour knocking on the door to ask them to turn the volume down. This is a fist clenching power ballad. Imagine Matt singing for Journey or Boston with a Brian May guitar solo. I’m a fan.

Unnatural Selection – This seems to be a favourite with other reviewers, it doesn’t appeal to me so much. I like the organ intro and the various riffs throughout the song (although the main riff could be a bit too similar to New Born). What I don’t like is the vocals, Matt’s voice in the verses annoys me, as does something about the “Counter balance this commotion…” bit which I can’t quite pinpoint. The rest of the vocals are alright, but pretty standard for Muse. I don’t get the middle section either. Maybe it’ll grow on me.

MK Ultra – This is reminiscent of Thoughts of a Dying Atheist, but again it’s better (again imho). Like the previous song there’s some Metallica-esque riffage going on. Not sure what else to say about it.

I Belong to You (+ Mon Cœur S’Ouvre à Ta Voix) – Again, if you’re not open to different styles, you probably won’t like this. It features some French lyrics and a clarinet solo, and, as far as I know, the first use of the word ‘muse’ in a Muse song. I like a bit of Jazz occasionally and I like this.

Exogenesis Symphony – Exogenesis is a name for the theory that life started elsewhere in the universe and spread to Earth; in this story the opposite happens as we’ve ruined this planet beyond repair and must start again somewhere else.

The strings on Part 1 (Overture) sound very familiar, but I can’t think where from, so I’ll make do with comparing to Blackout off of Absolution (which also includes an electric guitar part of a similar style), but with a bit more urgency. Matt questions ‘Who are we? Where are we? When are we? Why are we in here?’ and sings of being trapped and unforgiving in a voice that reminds me of Micro Cuts.

Part 2 (Cross-Pollination) begins with a piano part not dissimilar to the middle of Butterflies and Hurricanes and ‘You must rescue us all’ doesn’t sound all that different to ‘Best, you’ve got to be the best’. Sounding like one of the best Muse songs from previous albums wouldn’t have been all that great if it was too similar, thankfully that’s not the case.

Part 3 (Redemption) is sort of a happy ending (it’s actually about a new beginning), which actually reminds me a little bit of Coldplay’s The Escapist in a way.

In conclusion, at the moment it’s my favourite Muse album and therefore one of my favourite albums full stop (or period for any Americans who might be reading this. Ironically I’m not ending the sentence yet, so it’s actually a comma), although both of those statuses are likely to change over time, and probably come back again, and change again, and return again.

If you like Muse, I think you should like this (not that you necessarily will, I just think you should) and if you didn’t like Muse before I wouldn’t expect this to change your mind, but I have used at least two words in this review that I wouldn’t have used before in connection with Muse: ‘clarinet’ and ‘happy’, so I guess you could go either way.

I listened to most of the songs a few times while looking at other websites and they didn’t do much for me, I got much more into it when I could read the lyrics and properly concentrate on listening to it.

Setlists 2: Giving The People What They Want (or A Seaside Rendezvous)

I went to Teignmouth on Friday.

The first band on were called The Quails, another local band, they were quite good, but not in any danger of outshining the headliners. You can usually get some idea what a band will sound like from what they look like, but they were a bit confusing, the singer looked like he belonged in We Are Scientists while one of the other guitarists looked like a Metallica tribute band member. There was at least one too many guitarists, the singer and Mr. Metallica Tribute seemed to be playing exactly the same thing the whole time, which annoyed me, but overall I might get round to listening to more of them.

Then there was Cosmo Jarvis. I instantly liked him based just on his name. His music wasn’t bad either, with songs with titles like Gay Pirates, you know he’s not taking himself too seriously. I would say he sounds like a cross between Jamie T and Lee Evans. Opener She’s Got You was probably his best song, it started with a Ukelele and finished with a Recorder. I wasn’t optimistic when he later announced “This song’s called Jesus”, but it turned out not to be too bad, he was singing to a friend who’s “not Jesus, but you’re saving me”.

Muse were obviously awesome.

I wrote before that I would have liked to hear lots of the new album. We got 5 songs from The Resistance: Uprising and United States of Eurasia which had been heard in full already, then there was Resistance, Undisclosed Desires and Unnatural Selection, of which I’d only heard 30-second samples. They also played a “jazzy” piano version of Cave (“Oh, those were the days.”)

Muse have a lot of songs starting with the letter ‘U’.

I think they got the balance between new and old stuff pretty much perfect.

I said before that I would have liked them to play all of the new album, but when it came to it, it was better that they didn’t. For me, the best type of music by any band is a song that a large crowd can sing along to, a couple of good examples of the sort of great moments I mean would be Knights of Cydonia on the HAARP DVD and Coldplay’s Fix You on LeftRightLeftRightLeft. So while I would love to see more of the new stuff live, it would be much better to know the songs beforehand.

Resistance and Undisclosed Desires sounded great, and I think the samples gave a good idea of what the songs would sound like. The lyrics to Resistance are clearly influenced by George Orwell’s 1984, while Undisclosed Desires is another step away from the Muse of the past, beyond Supermassive Black Hole and Map of the Problematique.

EDIT: How could I forget to mention Matt’s Keytarcaster used for Undisclosed Desires?

I like the “I Want The Truth” moments in Unnatural Selection, and there’s an epic riff going on that, from videos on YouTube, sounds a bit like the New Born guitar riff, but at the gig itself I was standing too close to tell what it really sounded like, it was just a lot of noise.

I was also reminded that I actually like going to gigs by myself. I’ve seen Muse and Red Hot Chili Peppers twice, once each with other people and once by myself. When you go with other people you have to find the best place to stand to please everyone, I’m pretty tall so not being able to see isn’t usually a problem (although at this gig I was briefly stuck with my nose about 2 inches from the back of someone’s head who was only slightly shorter than me), while some people don’t want to be in the middle of a packed crowd jumping up and down (I don’t jump around much myself, but it doesn’t bother me being in the middle of other people doing it). I’ve also seen Blackbud 3 times, twice with other people and once by myself, and in this case, being a relatively unknown band, I was unsure whether the people I’d taken along were enjoying it.

But in summary, Muse are awesome!