Muse: The Resistance

It’s often easy to convey the feel of an album by throwing in a few musical comparisons. This can be very easily and accurately accomplished in the case of Muse’s 5^th studio offering which quite literally sounds like they’ve taken a selection of Queen and Radiohead CD’s and cleverly remixed them down into a single album.

The album kicks off with the vivacious “Uprising” and its rolling back beat, not dissimilar to the Timelords’ “Doctor and the Tardis”, punctuated with a simple guitar riff.

“United States of Eurasia” has an epic Freddie Mercury style vocal and a Brian May styled screeching guitar solo before fading into a classical piano outro.

“Guiding Light” shamelessly recycles Ultravox’s “Vienna” and adds a Thom Yorke vocal and tinkling guitars that to be honest left me pining for the sparseness or the original classic.

“Unnatural Selection” cranks it up a few gears with a clean and sharp Rush styled guitars.

The closing 16 minute classical symphony in 3 parts, “Exogenesis” proves without any shadow of doubt that Muse are so far up their own arses that an embarrassing trip to casualty will be required to bring them back to reality. The classical element of the first part is a simple repetitive Philip Glass affair with extravagant vocals and a guitar crescendo that leads into a truly moving and impressive classical piano piece. I know that sounds a little unkind, but it’s not a criticism I love a nice bit of pompous rock.

A truly grandiose rock album as pretentious as anything Yes ever accomplished in the 70’s.