MUSE
From the opening chords of the album Absolution, even the average listener can tell that they are not going to be embarking on an average journey through a CD. The first sounds you hear are the piano – and suddenly, it’s not just a piano, but a dramatic and furious instrument with a mind of its own, or a mad musician pounding away at the keys.
Muse’s third studio album subsides on the same pomp that has characterized their earlier work. However, where Showbiz (1999) and Origin of Symmetry (2001) thrived on a more deconstructive and chaotic approach, Absolution has whipped these impulses into tight submission.
The controlled fury in the crashing “Intro/Apocalypse Please” turns into the rhythmic “Time is Running Out,” which features lead singer Matt Bellamy’s voice going at full tilt – though diminutive in stature, Bellamy has a set of lungs on him that propel his falsetto to epic proportions.
Bellamy’s voice can almost count as another member of the band – it seems to operate of its own accord, writhing and twisting around, full of anguish and arrogance, passion and pain, and working like the bastard pied piper of music, mesmerizing the audience to follow it, to listen more, to throw themselves into the musical abyss that is Muse.
Tracks like “Small Print” and “Hysteria” emphasize this amazing vocal work, as well as drawing attention to the soaring, orchestral guitar and piano work on the album. The guitars wail and screech, and the heavy-handed drum work does not give up, even in the face of Bellamy’s often astounding vocal gymnastics.
2004 was a year that saw tracks from Absolution receive some well-deserved mainstream attention in the U.S. (naturally, the band has reached superstar status in their native Britain). Muse is a band positioned for musical greatness, and I for one am anxiously awaiting the band’s next aural avalanche.
-- JN 01/20/05
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