Muse - The 2nd Law

Heights

Just listening to the Muse stream of their next release The 2nd Law which can be found here http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2012/sep/24/muse-2nd-law-album-stream Opener Supremacy signals immediately the bombast of its rock niche: pumping harsh rhythms followed by sweeping orchestral synths in support of Matt Bellamy’s sweetsided vocal until the two styles merge with an Ennio Morricone guitar break.  Second track and single Madness is as Queen as it can be without prompting litigation, though this proceeding is teased and tempted with the following track Panic Station with its Another One Bites The Dust intro ape and  then 90s bass and drum beat. There is a 50 or so seconds of orchestral lull in next Prelude before launching into the strident ‘Olympic’ song Survival, its ascending operatic and chugging rhythms assailing the heights of glorious pomposity.

Sixth Follow Me is a 90s grand pop homage with its electronic noise bubbling throughout and an anthemic repeat of its title. Seventh Animals allows Bellamy to let loose a little on his guitar as well as climb more vocal harmonies, and eighth Explorer packages beauty in a typical Muse ballad that is louder than most but identified by its use of strings, some echoes of Radiohead in the swooning. Ninth Big Freeze invokes U2 and one feels a peripheral tribute tone in the songwriting and performance on a number of these tracks. I’ll skip to the eleventh Liquid State because it is a welcome return to a heavier inclination with the thud of bass and drums. The album finishes on tracks twelve and thirteen, respectively The 2^nd Law: Unsustainable and The 2^nd Law: Isolated System. The former is an amalgam of opera, orchestra, looping electronic sounds and recorded voice commenting on the 2^nd law of thermodynamics which as we all know is a general principle which places constraints upon the direction of heat transfer and the attainable efficiencies of heat engines. This recorded dialogue is continued into the latter with more looped sounds undulating around it and a piano tune leading into an ambient close. But not before it rises to more heights of the grandiose in a way only Muse can attain, or fall from depending on your own inclinations.

For me this is a quick listen and I’ll want to hear more, obviously, before deciding whether to enthusiastically join the climb or escape quickly down the slippery aural slopes. My initial feeling is that this is a lot of fun.