Muse Misses the Mark
Resistance’s unrestrained ambition leads to an album that doesn’t know when enough is enough.
Muse
The Resistance
Released on Sep 15, 2009
I look at Muse’s latest release, The Resistance, the same way I look at a new Mars Volta album: if
pure, unrestrained ambition is what gets you excited about music, then
you’re probably going to dig whatever either band has to present.
While they each appeal to their own particular demographic, both bands
share an incredibly uncompromising nature. They’re going to do their
thing, and if audiences like it, cool; if not, so be it.
But, while such an irrepressible sense of identity is at times something to admire, in the case of Muse’s The Resistance it comes off more as stubborn refusal to branch out or develop their sound. The humor website SomethingAwful.com once satirically accused Muse of being “a band whose every single sounds exactly like the last one, yet one is still totally unable to get used to it.” While certainly exaggerated for comedic purposes, the fact is that Muse seems unable or unwilling to dial down the bombast to anything below eleven. The result can be overwhelming to the average listener, the parade of “oohing” choral backing tracks, superfluous orchestral accompaniments, and Matt Bellamy’s borderline histrionic wails losing their effect after the fourth or fifth repetition.
None of this is helped by the general humorlessness of The Resistance. Moments like opener “The Uprising”, where the lyrics already teeter on the edge of ridiculousness (“Rise up and take the power back, it's time that / The fat cats had a heart attack”), are given no help whatsoever by Bellamy’s shrill delivery. And even when he occasionally brushes with the resonance he strives for (as in the chorus’ anthemic cry that “They will not control us / We will be victorious”), a poor songwriting decision undercuts the effectiveness entirely (in this case, a laughably inappropriate falsetto shout of “So, come on!” that sucks all the emotional weight out of the chorus).
“United States of Eurasia
(+Collateral Damage)” shows Muse aiming at a Queen-like sound, the
guitar tone and harmonies falling somewhere between “We Are the Champions”
and “Bohemian Rhapsody”. Yet, in the same way that Freddy Mercury
era Queen succeeded because of the band’s winking awareness of its
own ridiculousness (see: “Fat Bottomed Girls”), “United States
of Eurasia” fails because of Bellamy’s ever-present overseriousness.
The culmination of this excessive
self-seriousness, however, doesn’t manifest itself until the album’s
final three tracks, the so-called “Exogenesis Symphony” which packs
enough prog-rock clichés into its 13 minutes that I half-expect an
accompanying video with elves dancing around Stonehenge. Overstuffed
with directionless piano meanderings, swelling violin crescendos, and
with little meaningful lyrical content, it’s the kind of closer that
a band like Muse just doesn’t have the credibility to pull off.
As disappointing an album as The Resistance is, however, it is not without its strong moments. Perhaps not surprisingly, the band is most successful when it forgoes its greater ambitions in favor of simply being a capable rock band. The title track, “Resistance”, has the album’s best chorus, built on nothing more than distorted guitar, bass, drums, and a pleasantly reigned-in Bellamy vocal effort. It’s catchy, it’s fun, and as without-pretension as Muse ever gets. “Unnatural Selection” also stands out, if only for the fact that its tone and feel seem out of the band’s traditional comfort zone. A straightforward rocker once again free of orchestral clutter, it’s one of the few Muse songs I’ve ever heard where the band actually seems to be having fun playing together, and the result is engaging and interesting.
More than anything, Muse seems like a band that feels stuck between sonic identities. There’s clearly a pull towards the grandiosity and epic feel of Queen’s best work, and Bellamy and company seem to really strive at times to emulate that feel on The Resistance. But there also seems (perhaps somewhat inevitably) a pull towards the unsmiling artistic seriousness of Radiohead, and when the two influences collide the result is often an unmitigated train wreck. The Resistance’s two most successful songs, “Resistance” and “Unnatural Selection,” seem strangely enough drawn to post-punk contemporaries like Interpol. I would be very interested to see what Bellamy and company might do in seriously pursuing that particular sound, but if The Resistance is a sign of Muse albums to come, I probably won’t be along for the ride.
High Point
“Unnatural Selection” sounds like a band that really enjoys playing music together, which isn’t something frequently found on this album.
Low Point
The “Exogenesis Symphony” is really, really awful, and someone should have known better than to put it on an album.
Posted by David Sitrick on Sep 15, 2009 @ 6:00 am
