Muse - The 2nd Law: Review

Poor, or will you come back for more?

So here it is. It's finally here. It's been a while.  Three whole years, to be precise. For me at least, this is one of my most anticipated albums of all time; perhaps only pipped to the post by Muse's previous effort, 2009's The Resistance... I admit that I am a massive fan of theirs and that it's going to be quite a challenge to remove all bias (be it delusional praise or excessive criticism) from this review. I'll do my best though. Besides, what music fan doesn't have their own individual preferences? If anything it'll give me more an acute awareness of whether or not the band are doing the right thing or not - whatever that may indeed be. This makes it all the more worrying that, after multiple listens and much grappling, I still can't quite get a good hold on The 2nd Law... Honest to God, I'm not even sure if it's any good or not. Not the most assuring of words to hear from a reviewer, but bear with me as I try to get my opinions down onto cyber-paper on the fly. This should be interesting.

Righty then. I'll do this chronologically. The album kicks off with the wonderfully bombastic Supremacy. It sounds like a Bond theme right to the core, and in fact I'd bet you anything that Matt Bellamy had this in mind during the duration of its writing and recording. He's probably as disappointed as me, knowing that Adele's been handed the task. Some day, it'll happen... The main (7-string) riff is chunky and, in conjunction with the use of overly dramatic strings, positively reeks of Led Zep's Kashmir, which most definitely is no bad thing. Military snares, trumpet(s) and some standard Muse lyrics (emancipation and brainwashing, anyone?) delivered with some classic wailing make up the rest of the bulk of this track. Throw in a little bit of a rock-out session towards the end and you've got yourself a damn good opener. I really can't say much more about it. It's just rather excellent. Don't get too carried away just yet though - this is not a sign of things to come...

BAM. Just like that we have our first stark contrast of the record. It didn't take long. I would say that we've all heard Madness (The 2nd Law's first true single, after Survival) by now, but judging by its poor chart performance, we definitely haven't...which I think is a shame, as it's most definitely an eye-opener for the right reasons. So much so that Coldplay's Chris Martin described it as Muse's best song ever, and even Matt Bellamy claimed it to be his favourite song he's ever written... Personally I wouldn't go quite so far. Sonically it's difficult to describe. It's clearly an attempt to breach the mainstream, all the way through to the lyrics in which Matt sings more openly about relationships than he's ever done before. That's not saying much, mind, coming from a band which is probably collectively more in love with the idea of the apocalypse than anything or anyone else in this world. I quite like to describe Madness as a cross between Muse (obviously), late Queen, George Michael, U2, and Lady Gaga. My description makes it sound like a bit of a mess to say the least, but it really isn't. The guitar solo's decent and the harmonies are lovely. It's a nice, slightly threadbare and catchy tune - exactly what you'd want from a lead single proper.

BAM. I won't open every paragraph like this, honestly, but I'm afraid we've already come into contact with our second stark contrast of the album. Never in a million years would I have imagined Muse attempting funk. They've always been more than willing to innovate, but pure funk is one avenue I never for one second believed they'd go down. Never in a further million years would I have imagined any kind of surprisingly funky Muse song being anything approaching good. My beliefs and imaginations were wrong though - Panic Station, the third track on The 2nd Law, is funky as fuck AND is frankly bloody brilliant. It features the trumpet player from Stevie Wonder's Superstition for heaven's sake. I shit you not. It's by far the catchiest song on the album (far more so than the still very catchy Madness) and it proves that if Muse give a lot of effort, they really can apply themselves to any genre. Well...nearly any genre...but we'll get onto that little anomaly later. Panic Station presents not only a vocal style from Matt Bellamy that we've never heard before, but also a guitar style. It's also worth noting that this is the first ever Muse album track to contain swearing, so bear this in mind when considering playing it to your nan. I guess it's quite appropriate too that this is the only paragraph in this review in which I've sworn. Naughty. Let's move on...

Ah yes, Survival (preceded by the incredibly short but sweet and aptly named Prelude)... This song's racked up an awfully high play-count on my iPod. This is as 'Musey' as any of The 2nd Law gets, and personally I love it. I reckon it's the best representation of their stadium-filling sound that they've managed to produce, and this can be heard on the record without even having to see them in concert. Yes, the lyrics are beyond appalling... Yes, it's as cheesy as an old foot made of Leerdammer... Yes, it sounds a bit like Queen... But who cares? If you don't take it too seriously, I think it's a fantastic track. The finger-clicking and jolly piano makes way for just a tad of proclaimed success (it sounds to me like somebody's gonna win...) before imploding with a ludicrously over the top finish like you've never heard a ludicrously over the top finish before. Every instrument is sounding perfect, which forms quite a groove to be smothered by the ridiculous choir and the wailed vocals. If The Resistance era material was borderline self-parody, this has shamelessly well and truly crossed the line. It's certainly not to everyone's tastes, but it's as good and as 'Musey' as modern Muse gets, and this is a review of Muse after all...

Follow Me, as I say a few words about this next track... Hehe. This is where some of my opinions may be lacking conviction, as I just can't quite settle on a verdict. Follow Me is bound to divide the Muse fanbase, as will and has a fair amount of the rest of the album. It's a bit dubby and it's a bit clubby - unsurprising considering the help of Nero was enlisted to produce it. Lyrically it's about parenthood, and the opening even features the heartbeat of Bellamy's little boy Bingham. Yes, Bingham...or Bing for short. Take your pick - which is the lesser evil? Perhaps performed live it'd be more captivating, but honestly, this studio version of Follow Me doesn't have me doing much other than cringing. The wailing vocals are too much this time, the chorus (more specifically just the words 'follow me') doesn't sound powerful enough and by the end of the song you're probably perplexed by what the hell you've just listened to. The problem is, I like this song... Whoops.

Next up is Animals, another quite familiarly 'Musey' sounding song. That's not to say it's overly predictable, mind. Then again, it's also not exactly ground breaking... Here's the deal. The guitar's sounding wonderfully clean (especially during solo moments) and the lyrics are satisfyingly angst-filled and cynical, with Matt Bellamy suggesting to the corporate fat cats that they "kill yourselves and do us all a favour". Fair enough. On the negative side, I just can't help but keep being reminded of other Muse songs whilst listening to it...that already overused and cliché Muse chord progression is here, and it just disappoints me to see a band that is supposedly trying to consistently adapt and innovate fall back on such an old trick. Mind you, it's still a very good song...perhaps I'm just over-analysing. Despite my possibly overly harsh qualms, Animals is definitely a stand out track on the record.

Oh dear. Here's where my head is really torn as to what I should say. I'm going to simply lay it out to begin with and then follow up by explaining why...I think...I think that Explorers is crud. Utter crud. Cruddy crud of the crudular variety. There's more to it than that though, as for about half of the song I was actually very optimistic. Once there's more going on in the mix though, my enjoyment begins to slide and by the time the key change hits I'm nearly vomiting all over the floor. Oh, and did I mention that it's a lullaby? No no, not just any old lullaby...a lullaby about countries exploiting other countries for natural resources such as oil. Yeah, one of those lullabies. For me, this song is just horrible. A horrible song masking some hidden potential that's pushed all the way back to the beginning. I genuinely like the way it opens. It's quite sweet (though a little too reminiscent of their much earlier track, Shine) and touching as a bare-bones ballad. However, there's only so much crooned "free me" a man can take, and when you realise that it actually just sounds like a poor karaoke sing-along, all credibility gets sucked away. Matt's softly sung "shhh, go to sleep" is just a creepy nail in the cheese coffin... Shame.

Did you know that Bono temporarily joined Muse? Well now you do. Big Freeze is so U2esque that it nearly hurts; and it should hurt, because for the most part I bloody hate U2...but it doesn't... It's yet another cheesy moment on what's proven to be a pretty cheesy album so far, but it really is good. I can't quite explain why. It doesn't do anything particularly special, it doesn't send out any kind of interesting message, and on the whole it's rather unremarkable. But the melody and the backing vocals are really nice, and it just seems to slot reasonably well into the whole (loose) second law of thermodynamics concept as a very solidly listenable album track. Perhaps it sticks with me as one of the high points of the record, simply because it's the last we get to hear of Matt Bellamy actually singing proper lyrics on The 2nd Law...

Hmmmmm...hmmmmmmmmmmm...hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. This is me pondering the next two intriguing tracks. Save Me and Liquid State were both written and sung by bassist Chris Wolstenholme - a first for the band. The news of this big step had many fans worrying, and I can safely say that those worries can be quashed. However, simultaneously, other worries should arise. The songs are good - there's no doubt about it - but they completely detract from the flow and the experience on the whole. Simply put, they don't belong here. They focus on his personal recovery from alcoholism, which had led to him being a distant figure from the other members at times. This in itself isn't exactly relevant to the second law of thermodynamics, but crucially it's just not Muse. Whenever I hear either one of these two tracks I feel like I'm listening to an entirely different band. A decent band, sure, but that's irrelevant. I don't even feel the need to go into any detail about Save Me or Liquid State, as for me it's obvious that they severely harm the record. I understand that Chris wanted to have a go, and that's absolutely fine - but maybe these tracks would have been better as B-sides? I just don't know. I'm probably the only person who sees it this way anyway.

Now, onto the finale! The big finish! The dubstep! Yup...dubstep, or brostep as many have been calling it recently. Split into two subsections, titled Unsustainable and Isolated system, The 2nd Law has a self-titled closer. Boy oh boy is it an interesting couple of tracks... The first of the two was the first segment of music we actually heard from the album, several months ago, and it caused quite a stir. Strings gather intensity in very familiar fashion before a stuttering female newsreader decides to teach us some science. If this wasn't weird enough, what follows probably will be. The bass drops and in comes an angry robot who repeatedly tells us we're unsustainable. Fine... The dubstep elements then combine with the strings, before Matt Bellamy's wordless wailing heightens the drama further and the bass drops once more. It's astonishingly mental. Unfortunately, it's probably also astonishingly bad. Whether you like the genre or not, Unsustainable is NOT good dubstep. It lacks depth and complexity and is incredibly clean sounding. In my opinion it needs more grit and punch, but it's at least cool to know that the sounds we can hear came from a guitar. The whole thing's just utterly laughable. It's bad but it's a barmy guilty pleasure. Part 2, Isolated System, is a quite mellow instrumental closer. The track centres around a basic piano melody not that dissimilar to the beginning of Tubular Bells. A faint beat and soothing strings slide over the top, to create a gorgeous spacey atmosphere. Jumbled voices sound, before quickly making way for normal service to be resumed. To me it just doesn't do enough though; for the entire song I'm just waiting for it to explode, but it never really does. At pretty much the exact moment I expect it to rip-roar into life, the newsreader from Unsustainable is back to close the album with a juttering loop. Missed potential once more, I feel. One thing it does tell us is that some day, probably in the not too distant future, Bellamy will compose a film soundtrack. He's too talented and too interested not to. 

So that's that. 3 years of waiting, for this. Was it worth the wait? I'm not so sure. There's some good tunes here and it's always refreshing to see a band embracing experimentation in this day and age, even if it does come with largely mixed results. I've found The 2nd Law to be a very tricky to album to evaluate on the whole. Once more it seems that Muse are simply trying to do too many things at once when it may have benefited them to just focus more squarely on more specific areas and try to hone them instead. I don't know, I guess I'm just trying to find excuses for and ways of fixing my own personal disappointment. Perhaps the spark has just gone... I was once convinced that in 30 or so years' time, Muse would be looked back upon and revered as a modern day Pink Floyd, or just generally a classic rock band of their time. MASSIVE gigs and multiple awards made me see it as a certainty, so long as they continued down that same or a similar road. Now I'm not so sure...I fear that this phase of Muse, though containing lots of genuinely good music, may be overlooked and forgotten due to all being a bit too embarrassing. Nobody should expect the old Muse to come back, as change is inevitable...so for now, enjoy what you have of their glory days and attempt to embrace where they're headed. It may be a difficult change to take, but The Resistance and The 2nd Law is the Muse of now. The glory days are over, but who's to say they won't come back some day? For the moment, loosen up, try to forget that this is the same band who made Origin Of Symmetry and Absolution, and you'll likely find a mental mixed bag of an album that's worth giving multiple listens to.

6.5/10