Album review - Muse: Absolution
So…
Imagine in your twisted mind that Roger Waters of Pink Floyd, Thom Yorke of Radiohead and Daniel Johns from Silverchair, through some dark twisted orgy, managed to give birth to a nigh-perfect musical creation. Wouldn’t that ROCK? The hard-rocking yet poignant soul of Silverchair, the vocal and musical experimentation of Radiohead and the dark lyricism of Pink Floyd? If only, eh?
Well boys and girls, it has happened. For your approval, I submit Absolution, the latest EP from the UK’s Muse.
Many of you have probably heard the first mega-hit single Time is Running Out. I’ll admit that when I first heard it, I was decidedly unimpressed. It sounded like another garage-refugee Brit-rock band, the latest of many to hit the new rock scene. However, when I heard the second single Hysteria, I realized that there may be more to the band than another top 40 hit.
If we can discount Time for a moment (and I think we can), Absolution is a complete, narrative album. The tracks flow into one another a la Dark Side of the Moon. Matthew Bellamy’s voice is definitely worth a few listens. Finally a rock singer who isn’t afraid to sustain. I thought we had lost them all. Chris Wolstenholme, the band’s bassist contributes some unbelievable bass lines on tracks like Hysteria and Stockholm Syndrome. It’s almost like listening to the best techno you’ve ever imagined.
While the album is a bit tortured, it takes the time to rock pretty hard. The heavier songs are almost always balanced with cool expressive passages, making this album a regular treat for the ears. It’s one of those rare few that you can curl up with and just listen without doing anything else.
The only criticisms that I will make of this album are as follows:
1) Very heavy-handed getting the point across. The album doesn’t have an uplifting song, and it can really use one. Even Dark Side had a happy ending… then again, The Wall didn’t. But it had a sense of humour.
2) Musical depth. While each band member is very skilled, I was left with the feeling that they could have done more with the incredible compositions. Liberal helpings of strings and piano are classy, but we’ve heard it before.
Otherwise, not a patch on this album. Well worth the money I spent on it instead of ripping the tracks off the web. If you’d like to hear first-hand what I’m talking about, listen to some samples.
Stay tuned for my upcoming review of Cake’s latest, Pressure Chief.
Imagine in your twisted mind that Roger Waters of Pink Floyd, Thom Yorke of Radiohead and Daniel Johns from Silverchair, through some dark twisted orgy, managed to give birth to a nigh-perfect musical creation. Wouldn’t that ROCK? The hard-rocking yet poignant soul of Silverchair, the vocal and musical experimentation of Radiohead and the dark lyricism of Pink Floyd? If only, eh?
Well boys and girls, it has happened. For your approval, I submit Absolution, the latest EP from the UK’s Muse.
Many of you have probably heard the first mega-hit single Time is Running Out. I’ll admit that when I first heard it, I was decidedly unimpressed. It sounded like another garage-refugee Brit-rock band, the latest of many to hit the new rock scene. However, when I heard the second single Hysteria, I realized that there may be more to the band than another top 40 hit.
If we can discount Time for a moment (and I think we can), Absolution is a complete, narrative album. The tracks flow into one another a la Dark Side of the Moon. Matthew Bellamy’s voice is definitely worth a few listens. Finally a rock singer who isn’t afraid to sustain. I thought we had lost them all. Chris Wolstenholme, the band’s bassist contributes some unbelievable bass lines on tracks like Hysteria and Stockholm Syndrome. It’s almost like listening to the best techno you’ve ever imagined.
While the album is a bit tortured, it takes the time to rock pretty hard. The heavier songs are almost always balanced with cool expressive passages, making this album a regular treat for the ears. It’s one of those rare few that you can curl up with and just listen without doing anything else.
The only criticisms that I will make of this album are as follows:
1) Very heavy-handed getting the point across. The album doesn’t have an uplifting song, and it can really use one. Even Dark Side had a happy ending… then again, The Wall didn’t. But it had a sense of humour.
2) Musical depth. While each band member is very skilled, I was left with the feeling that they could have done more with the incredible compositions. Liberal helpings of strings and piano are classy, but we’ve heard it before.
Otherwise, not a patch on this album. Well worth the money I spent on it instead of ripping the tracks off the web. If you’d like to hear first-hand what I’m talking about, listen to some samples.
Stay tuned for my upcoming review of Cake’s latest, Pressure Chief.
Posted by Crommunist @ 3:12 am
Muse?.. wtf, maybe they’ll become a decent band after 10 years, they are way to far behind pink floyd and radiohead. They not a bit special, except the vocalist. Their music is… mm.. narrow, same guitars and pianos, while radiohead is full of amazing sounds, blips, various keyboard sounds. As I said, at the moment, Muse is quite an ordinary band, wait some years before talking about musical perfections.
Comment on August 31, 2005 @ 7:25 am