|
The 2nd Law was definitely a disappointment at first, largely because of the production, which I think is the main thing that didn't sound Musey about it. But it's still in pretty heavy rotation on my car stereo, because the digital download version (high-res, high-bitrate FLAC) was one of the most perfectly mastered recordings I've heard in a long time. I'm not sure if a "return to roots" is really what I want from them at this point. I think an album like the last one could be done well, just with a different production style. The songs themselves weren't at fault (as evidenced by how much better they sounded live). Of course, "return to roots" albums never really live up to the promise anyway, so it's just as well.
|
#
¿
Jan 20, 2015 17:11
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 10, 2024 08:37 |
|
|
Well I guess anyone who expected Muse to move past the whole "ironic paramilitary anthem" thing was wrong in the worst possible way, huh? More dubstep please.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 12, 2015 22:37
|
|
|
Honestly, '80s hair metal is a good look for them so I don't really have anything against this. See also "Guiding Light" for their monster ballad.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 16, 2015 11:42
|
|
|
Popcorn posted:Nothing exemplifies the drop in Muse's songwriting better than the tragic death of the great Muse bridge. I've found that to be the surest sign of a band losing its touch, generally. The bridges are almost always the first thing to suffer. I suppose that's because the best use for a bridge is to temporarily deviate from what the rest of the song is doing, and sticking to an easy songwriting formula is diametrically opposed to that.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 17, 2015 12:09
|
|
|
Now THIS, I like. But I'm only cautiously optimistic, since everything else I've heard about the album suggests that this is just the token electropop song. I honestly wish they'd go completely in this direction, since there's little chance the "classic Muse" will ever come back. Not that it necessarily needs to at this point.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 23, 2015 23:33
|
|
|
Yikes, this song really doesn't have a whole lot going for it, does it? Production-wise it has some of the trappings of a Muse song -- even the return of our beloved arpeggios -- but for the most part it's just standard pop chords with an indistinct melody crooned on top of it. (And terrible lyrics, but that's really not worth mentioning at this point.) I can easily picture it with some sort of dubstep fusion and/or four-on-the-floor dance beat behind it instead, sort of like "Follow Me" -- and sadly, it would probably be a lot better that way. I still have a hard time believing the band really wants to "go back to their roots" and isn't just trying to please fans. This album is sounding more and more like the kind of half-hearted compromise between old and new that most aging rock bands end up falling into, once they've chosen to live in fear of backlash. EDIT: Also, the very first thing the song reminded me of was when Luigi is trapped in a bubble in New Super Mario Bros. "Help-a meeee!" Sir Lemming fucked around with this message at 02:48 on May 19, 2015 |
|
#
¿
May 18, 2015 22:51
|
|
|
GTO posted:
Personally I feel they've reached the point of diminishing returns with their "classic sound" -- that was The Resistance. Really a fine album in its own right, but it was also clear that they'd gone back to that same well too many times. As I've probably said way too many times in this thread alone, I wish they'd complete their arc of imitating Radiohead and ditch the pretense of being a "rock band" since their heart doesn't seem to be in that anymore. Their electronica-driven songs have been stealing the show lately; "Madness" was the best song on The 2nd Law and it sounds to me like "Dead Inside" will be the best song Drones. And their "rock" songs are starting to sound like overly ProTooled imitations of their former selves (see album version of "Supremacy"). Might as well be done with it and go all-in on the electronic thing. 5 albums of their old sound is enough. Speaking of The 2nd Law, all this talk has gotten me to look into an idea I had (and/or stole from some other guy on the internet, possibly on this forum) a while ago; making a better track sequence for the album. In particular, the ending sequence of the album has always seemed weird. 2 songs by the bassist followed by 2 instrumentals? Yeah, that just has "skippable" written all over it. I was thinking something like: 1. The 2nd Law: Unsustainable 2. Supremacy 3. Madness 4. Panic Station 5. Animals 6-7. Survival (w/ Prelude) 8. Explorers 9. Save Me 10. Liquid State 11. Follow Me 12. Big Freeze 13. The 2nd Law: Isolated System I've been listening to it like this on an iTunes playlist and I've seen a few advantages so far, although I'd eventually want to actually edit the files to tighten some of the gaps. First off, splitting up the instrumentals just seems obvious. "Unsustainable" also feels like a very natural intro, and it's in the same key as "Supremacy" so it goes into it perfectly. It also hypes up the drama of "Supremacy" a little more -- it feels more like there's an actual reason for all the overdramatic grandstanding! It's like "Unsustainable" introduces the whole theme of the album and what they're fighting against, and then here comes Muse to introduce their side of the story. I tried playing with the sequence of the next few tracks (even putting "Liquid State" at track 3) but ultimately I think they got this part right originally. I mean, where else are you gonna put "Panic Station"? But I stuck "Animals" in there because I've always felt like it actually is a really good song, but it just fails to command much attention when it's snuck in there after "Survival" and "Follow Me". It feels better to me in this album's analogue to the "Map of the Problematique" spot. Then we have "Survival", moved a bit later because it's so drat bombastic. It doesn't really need to be in the first stretch of the album; it excites enough on its own. The 3 tracks after that I pretty much couldn't find a better place for, but I think they flow well. Next, I think "Follow Me" is a pretty "big" song and earns a place near the end of the album. It also transitions perfectly into "Big Freeze". I know that's not high on a lot of people's lists of favorite Muse songs, but I like it quite a bit, and I also think it's the closest thing this album has to a good finale.
|
|
#
¿
May 22, 2015 11:51
|
|
|
GTO posted:Nah, I want songs that sound like the first half of OOS. The only songs on The Resistance that I'd put in that category is MK Ultra and maybe Unnatural Selection. I do like the more instrumental stuff too, like Exogenesis. I know mentioning this band always takes away any street cred the poster may have ever had, but... Korn did a dubstep fusion album a few years ago, and despite the obvious initial backlash, it's pretty much universally regarded as the most interesting thing they've put out in over a decade (though not without its own massively embarrassing low points). They actually committed to the new sound pretty well. Of course, their next album was a disappointing retreat into predictable, overproduced nü-metal by numbers. I hate when that happens. The Mash posted:In my opinion, Uprising is the worst Muse song because that's the most blatant point at which they became a Muse satire band. That whole chorus is the dumbest thing. Until "Psycho" of course! 
Sir Lemming fucked around with this message at 18:12 on May 22, 2015 |
|
#
¿
May 22, 2015 18:05
|
|
|
Popcorn posted:Panic Station could have been cool, maybe, if it didn't have the production values of a Sonic Adventure soundtrack and Matt didn't try to improvise "waoooo!" singing tics exactly like your mum would. I'm still miffed that they apparently hired the same brass section from Stevie Wonder's "Superstition", and then buried them so deep in the mix that they're indistinguishable from a Casio keyboard.
|
|
#
¿
May 22, 2015 19:37
|
|
|
There's a little voice in the back of my head* saying something along the lines of "This still really doesn't sound like Muse" but that's just nitpicking; this is a really fun song. I sense that this album may be even more of a disjointed, schizophrenic mess than The 2nd Law, but at least we're back up to a ratio of "half decent" with the songs released so far. * It's also entirely possible that this voice is Matt Bellamy's lyrics. Sir Lemming fucked around with this message at 00:32 on May 30, 2015 |
|
#
¿
May 30, 2015 00:12
|
|
|
What I find most interesting about this one is that it was almost definitely more of a dubstep track at some point in its life. Rhythmically, the elements are all there. Honestly I'm not convinced the drums aren't still synthetic, but who knows. Regardless, it definitely sounds Muse-y in a good way. Am I crazy, or is the guitar solo in the middle slightly behind the beat?
|
|
#
¿
Jun 1, 2015 23:08
|
|
|
Hedrigall posted:Defector was surprisingly a bit repetitive, and the verses are bizarrely tuneless. It's alright, but not as good as I'd hoped. Maybe it'll grow on me. I'm definitely with you on that; it just seems to keep going and going. You could easily cut out like 2 minutes of the song and lose nothing. Some good hooks and riffs in there, but where's the structure? Same 4 chords all the way through, too. It's even more repetitive than "Mercy". Granted, repetitive is not always bad. But these are examples of it being bad. And at risk of being repetitive myself, WOW the lyrics are bad on this album. It just seems like a collection of blunt, generic statements that don't go anywhere. "Youre a handler. I'm a defector. I'm free. I'm gonna make you a psycho." etc. Not listening to the full leak yet because at the rate they're releasing lyric videos I've almost heard the whole album anyway. Just gonna wait to stream it next week.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 3, 2015 22:59
|
|
|
So, this review is actually pretty terrible because it really never even discusses the music itself, but it does make a pretty solid critique of exactly why the lyrics are so bad: http://www.timeout.com/london/music/muse-drones-album-review quote:But the greatest sin of this record is that it’s tactless and crass. Bellamy’s supposed narrative is as dull as dog food – told with the wishy-washy flim-flam of a frothing conspiracy theorist. Again, really not a good music review but I do tend to agree about the lyrics. Beyond yelling things like "DRONES! HERE COME THE DRONES!" they don't really say anything thought-provoking about the subject. Not that Muse has ever really done that, but I think maybe this is one of those topics where if you're not going to go in-depth, it's better not to go into it at all. I mean, maybe one or two songs would be okay, but a whole concept album kind of needs to have something interesting to say about its concept.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 6, 2015 13:08
|
|
|
"So, listen... Drones are bad... m'kay? And, and you shouldn't use 'em... and they're bad... m'kay..." Listening to the whole album hasn't done much to improve my first impressions of it. Despite the lyrics being insultingly simple, in terms of the alleged concept of the album as a whole, they're incredibly confusing. It's really hard to tell what point they're making, other than... well, drones are bad. "The Globalist" in particular has potential to be a really solid high-concept prog-rock suite, but I don't even understand who it's supposed to be about. It really sounds like it's supposed to be about Obama (or at least some fictional stand-in, considering it refers to a commander-in-chief) but this idea was never even hinted at in any of the songs leading up to it. It's supposedly about this character who gets depressed and joins the military and revolts. I guess maybe the president is killing him now? But in the process he nukes the entire world? Why? The way the song ends definitely could be chilling and poignant, but there's pretty much no solid justification for it. Nine Inch Nails pulled off something like this way better about 10 years ago, with the whole Great Destroyer / Another Version Of The Truth / Zero-Sum sequence at the end of Year Zero . Trent Reznor isn't the greatest lyricist either, but he's good enough to make this kind of thing work. Now let's rewind a bit to "Revolt". I don't have much to say about it that hasn't already been said, except that Muse could've done a cover of "Let It Go" from Frozen and stuck it in this same spot on the album and it honestly might've been an improvement. (Still can't decide whether or not I want to hear this now.) "Aftermath" is... whatever. Muse obviously has everything it takes to do a terrible-yet-awesome power ballad (just listen to "Guiding Light", even though I know most of you would rather not) but here, they've disappointed even on that front. It just never gets bombastic enough to be enjoyable on that level. And what's up with the part around 4:10? The guitar seems to be climbing up Hair Metal Mountain, ready to unleash an epic squeedly solo, and then it suddenly fades out and gets replaced with some unrelated riff. Sounds like a really bad edit to me.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 9, 2015 14:18
|
|
|
I honestly don't see any of the supposed tongue-in-cheek cheesiness, '80s inspiration, or Queen tribute aspects of "Revolt". It just sounds like a bad, generic, modern rock song to my ears. And remember, I'm that guy who keeps defending "Guiding Light". But I just don't "get" this one at all.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 11, 2015 02:03
|
|
|
auzdark posted:I wish they did more awesome eastern sounding songs like United States of Eurasia - I was excited that it felt like Aftermath was going to go somewhere with the intro... But that would be expanding their sound, which is a bad thing now because people didn't like the dubstep! So here's a "back to basics" album that I'm pretty sure doesn't even have live drumming. 
|
|
#
¿
Jun 11, 2015 16:04
|
|
|
Paperback Writer posted:I've kind of overplayed The Handler but if only because it's a top shelf Muse song start to finish and we haven't got one of those for nearly a decade. It seriously boggles my mind how they were able to ditch all the gimmicks and stupid stuff and produce this gem. Didn't think they had it in them anymore. This is absolutely true, even though it's secretly a dubstep song.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 11, 2015 19:17
|
|
|
Volkerball posted:Anyone else think this new album is really disappointing? Pretty much everyone in the thread, yeah!
|
|
#
¿
Aug 21, 2015 02:39
|
|
|
"Aftermath" remains one of the most baffling tracks on the album to me. I think we all suspected that Muse would one day be crazy enough to do a full-blown, quite-possibly-serious power ballad. And yet somehow it doesn't sound nearly overblown and cheesy enough. How did that happen? It almost seems like like they deliberately avoided really delivering on the concept; the climax of the song, where it would be really easy to go for some crazy glory notes and guitar licks, just kind of passes by unnoticed. I mean, subverting expectations can definitely be a cool thing, but it should be to some particular end. I don't know what they were going for here. Sir Lemming fucked around with this message at 14:24 on Aug 31, 2015 |
|
#
¿
Aug 31, 2015 14:20
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 10, 2024 08:37 |
|
|
For a much better example of how to do this type of album -- including a song that metamorphosizes into a sonic portrayal of nuclear destruction -- look at Nine Inch Nails's "Year Zero" from 2007. (Apologies if I've basically made this post before, I can't remember.) I think what makes YZ work better is that Trent Reznor wrote in a number of different "voices", which helps break up the monotony. So it's not just one guy repeating basically the same point over and over again, and then all of a sudden, dramatic finale, and there's your concept album. It is definitely still a little ham-fisted at times, but overall, much more successful. (I guess Muse also did that a little bit with Psycho and possibly The Globalist. Just needed to be fleshed out a little more IMO.) Sir Lemming fucked around with this message at 15:06 on Mar 31, 2016 |
|
#
¿
Mar 31, 2016 15:03
|
|