Muse - The 2nd Law

Forget the Monsters, ignore the Beliebers; Muse fans are the worst fans in the world, at least this side of the pond. I'm not sure if this is because my awareness of them and their determination to prove that Muse are THEBESTEVA correlates with the band's obvious decline in quality, or the fact that they'll vote in their droves to give the band just about any award going - including the highly dubious 'Sexiest Man in Rock' title to Matt Bellamy, who more closely resembles a vole than anything close to a hottie.

Yet it seems to me that the backlash directed at the band by some is equally unjustified: this is a band after all that's put out albums as excellent as Origin of Symmetry, Absolution and Black Holes and Revelations. If the band are guilty of trying to appear eccentric with Bellamy's conspiracy theories and their supposed inspiration of their latest material, then that's fair enough, but Muse are pretty far from the worst thing in rock music. 2012 sees their thirteenth year in the album-releasing business, and although the British press might ham it up a bit by repeatedly referring to them as the "greatest band in the world" (they aren't, and have never been) there's always this buzz about Muse albums that few bands match.

And if there's a band willing to match a huge noise about them it's Muse, with the opening song 'Supremacy', their very own Bond theme. With some of the boldest riffs they've done since Supermassive Black Hole, the track stomps through incredibly John Barry string arrangements and a subdued marching drum section before Bellamy lets out a typically overstated falsetto of "the time has come to destroy your supremacy!" It's all over-the-top fun, right down to the conclusive blues guitar, but sadly the album's sole attempt at another Knights of Cydonia moment. It's instead followed by the much more contemporary 'Madness', but it's no less intriguing. Initial peeks at the album and its influences very much signalled a kind of dubstep direction (we'll see more of that in 'The 2nd Law'), and here a very minimalist bass loop lets Bellamy sell his considerably lovely vocals instead. Chris Martin refers to it as the best ever Muse song, which is of course nonsense because no one ever agrees with Chris Martin, but it's a new leaf for the band and essentially a great song (even if there're homages to about 34 different songs within it - I Want to Break Free, Faith and any given U2 ballad towards the end). Quite why it's followed with a funk track - 'Panic Station' - displays my main quibble with the album. There's no connection between the two, there's no obvious theme, and although hiring the instrumentalists from Stevie Wonder's Superstition might be about the most obvious way to get funky, it just feels like a pastiche.

There's then, of course, their Olympic moment: given its very own 'Prelude' (which has all the pomp and ceremony of a Disney film's opening titles), 'Survival' was obviously conceived as yet another awe-inspiring "YOU CAN DO IT!" moment but just seemed totally irrelevant with the entire ceremony. Maybe because it sounds more like the credits to a Super Mario game. Also not entirely sure where "vengeance is mine" fit in with the whole Olympic spirit, either. Musically it's pretty much exactly the same as United States of Eurasia. So uh, thanks for that guys. Producers Nero make 'Follow Me' essentially their own song featuring Matt Bellamy, so... the whole track depends on your stance on Nero. Either way it's not as memorable as 'Promises' or 'Crush on You', so don't get the glowsticks out. Towards the end Bellamy sort-of morphs into Jared Leto's howls on the lovely Kings and Queens. They don't really hold back lyrically with the seething assault on Wall Street-type bankers and stockbrokers (the track ends with a sound clip from a trading room floor) culminating in the line "kill yourself/ come on and do us all a favour". Naturally the anti-establishment continues onto 'Explorers' ("running around in circles, feeling caged by endless rules") and, dodgy teenager-political-sentiments aside it's quite a nice hark back to their earlier albums' sound.

Most people (Muse fans) complain that the band are too often compared to Radiohead and Queen. So let me free you from this cycle and write off 'Big Freeze' as about the most obvious Where the Streets Have No Name derivative since the Temper Trap's (at least hopelessly romantic and pretty) Sweet Disposition. 'Big Freeze' is nonsense from the get-go ("I lost before I started", Bellamy whimpers). He relinquishes frontman duties to Chris Wolstenholme for the next two - 'Save Me' (see: Doves) and 'Liquid State', a personal reflection on the effects of alcoholism that's not particularly subtle ("feed me poison, fill me 'til I drown") but, given the pointedly Foo Fightersish musical direction of the track, it's rather interesting. I was certain that my iTunes had made an error, though, because this just sounds a world away from the rest of the album. Particularly when followed by their two 2nd Laws: 'Unsustainable', which we all saw in the album trailer (accompanied by daft walking television-monsters) and rightly scoffed at for being ridiculous, and 'Isolated System', an over-wrought piano piece interspersed with doomy news clippings.

I know loads of you'll write me off as a snob or a hipster for this, but I don't take joy out of hating on Muse. Origin of Symmetry was one of my favourite albums of the last decade, and Absolution wasn't far behind. It's just that, with those albums, there was a resounding theme and aesthetic about both of them that isn't present here. So many different genres and styles are kind of clumsily mashed together in a very Skrillex fashion and, sadly, like the shaved antichrist himself, a lot of it's unpleasant. Naturally, some of those styles are nailed brilliantly, and there are shadows of the old Muse we all love, but these glimpses are rare.

Rating: 5/10
Highlights: Supremacy, Madness, Explorers, Animals, Liquid State
Avoid: Big Freeze, Survival, The 2nd Law (both tracks), Follow Me, Panic Station

Artwork Watch: Looks like someone spent too much looking at the contents of their hoover. 
Up next: Ellie Goulding