Tackling a Muse [Twitter/Facebook] album is always a tricky task, not least because in recent times (certainly since 2006’s masterful Black Holes and Revelations) their ‘albums’ have tended to work more as collections of songs than cohesive works. There’s nothing wrong with that, and indeed, some would say that the more scattershot approach taken to their post-Absolution material works for them, because the trio always had their fingers in multiple pies on their albums, it was just done in such a way that the results flowed better. These days, for Muse, it’s not so much about flow as answering the question, ‘What can we get away with this time?’
Such an approach to making albums can often result in a band falling short, and Muse did this with their last effort, The Resistance, which had some great songs but sometimes seemed a little too self-indulgent and lacking in focus; the latter point was taken to the nth degree, and the result was below-par, an album that just wasn’t up to their standard. The shock tactics employed in unleashing the strings-infused, dubsteppy Unsustainable in the album trailer back in June showed that the band retained the ability to surprise, but from there, they moved to the Queen-referencing bombast of Survival (the lead single proper, used in this summer’s Olympic coverage), and then to the glittering electro-pop of Madness, a cousin of Undisclosed Desires from three years ago.
Madness indeed. It doesn’t get any easier to pin down the band’s new sounds from there – if Adele hadn’t gotten there first, then Muse would have been a shoo-in for writing the theme to the new James Bond film; opener Supremacy has that sort of cinematic feel, crossed with a hint of Led Zeppelin’s Kashmir (it’s the interaction between the strings and drums that’s the giveaway); there’s a Prince vibe running through Panic Station; and the appreciation for classical music that Matt Bellamy, in particular, has been known to have comes to the fore in the minute-long instrumental Prelude, which sets up Survival quite well.
From there, there’s less bombast and even more experimentation. Unsustainable isn’t the only place where that so-called ‘dubstep direction’ crops up. The band roped in Nero to assist with Follow Me, and he’s lent just the right amount of wub to the chorus; the rest of the song sits somewhere between U2 and Pet Shop Boys, and the sort of anthemic song that that suggests won’t appeal to most people. Indeed, it’s not what Muse are known for, but some of the material on The 2nd Law is almost uplifting. Of course, they’ve never been shy about displaying their political side, and Animals glides along in an unconventional time signature, an oddly calming song for the most part, paired with some seriously vitriolic lyrics.
Despite all this willingness to experiment, not everything comes off well: not even a (sorry) supermassive chorus can save token ballad Explorers, and bassist Chris Wolstenholme’s first vocal contributions (Save Me and Liquid State) show a different side to the band, but those two songs may prove divisive; likewise, the largely-instrumental ending to the album, Unsustainable/Isolated System, may be seen as the band going out with a whimper and not with a bang. At the same time, though, there will be people who like all these songs (I’m certainly on board with the two-part closer), and therein lies the beauty of an ‘album’ like The 2nd Law: whilst it is clear that Muse have morphed into an entirely different band from the one that gave us their first three albums, they’re well able to provide something for everyone, and it just so happens that most of it finds them back to their usual standard.
The 2nd Law is out today via Warner.
