Muse - Put the Dubstep down and back away.

You've all got it wrong about Survival.

They were approached by the Olympic committee when they were writing the album and they decided that song would be best. It was at this point in a very unfinished state, so they then CONTINUED to write it with the Olympics in mind. Bellamy said himself in the interview that he's not sure whether it would've been quite like it is if it weren't for it being meant for the Olympics.

:edit: FOOOOOOLLOW MEEEEEE. YOU CAN FOOOOOOOOLLOW MEEEEEE.
 
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Been listening to the album, seriously, what's the problem with survival? It's an awesome song on it's own. For me, this album is good but not quite up for there me - Follow Me is definitely a stand out,a long with Panic Station (it's got Queen written all over it, I love it).

I really, really don't like Save Me and Liquid State. Chris is good as a backing vocal but as a lead, I thought I was listening to the wrong album when it came on! Polarising songs for me.
 
Its a good album, not great, but it is good.

Supremacy, Madness, Follow me, Panic station are all GREAT. let down by a few tracks along the way. I dont mind Survival personally. I quite like Liquid State as well. Hopefully the album is a grower but imo not up there with black holes/absolution.
 
Going to write a mini-review of this now I've spent some time with it.

It's a weird one. From one angle this is the first time that Muse haven't sounded like Muse. Sure you could play spot the influence before, but now heart on sleeve nods and references have been replaced by almost carbon copy songs of other bands and genres. It doesn't even try to hide the influences. Some of Showbiz reminded us of Radiohead, but Supremacy is Bond. Some of the Resistance reminded us of Queen, but Big Freeze is U2. It's amazing how Panic Station actually steals that riff from Superstition by Stevie Wonder and how Follow Me has hoodwinked the popular Dubstep trend (it's probably fairer to say the later example is a shift in style rather than a mimic). Explorers even sounds like that middle bit from the 1st movement of Moonlight Sonata.

This doesn't mean they are bad songs, I just think copying other well known styles is such an odd way of trying to sound fresh. I'm reminded of 'Kill the DJ' by Green Day, another bizarre example of the trick Muse play on this album. It's shapeshifting, but not innovating.

Perhaps the most surprising thing is that on at least two occasions Muse steal from their own songs. The biggest culprit is Animals, which directly steals chord progressions from Ruled by Secrecy and Screenager (I'd argue it steals the "I don't want to leave you now" part from the Beatles' Something, but perhaps that's a bit harsh). Likewise, Explorers directly thieves a melody and chord progression from Invincible. This is actually what I find the most concerning.

Then I'm faced with the other hand, that there is an undeniable shift in style in two directions. The first is of the shapeshifter variety, that being the addition of the dubstep element found on Follow Me, Unsustainable and Madness. The later is bringing Chris to the forefront and getting him to sing, which is incredibly brave really. The former you can accuse with being lazy or 'trend-jumping', the latter your cannot I can only approve of this exploration and diversification of their song base.

Amongst this backdrop is what actually matters. The songs - they're pretty good. Out of the context of the Olympics, Survival strikes me as the highlight and contains some ferocious guitar moments to boot. The terrible tone from The Resistance is long gone. Madness and Follow Me are much more pleasing on repeated listens and it's only the last song, Isolated System, that seems to qualify as not warranting many repeated plays. Other than Survival, there isn't anything that truly grips my imagination, but certainly nothing that offends me either.

So it's good but I can't lay into it, or endlessly praise it. I guess that's it, it just means that it's good and it might have the potential to grow on me with time.

7/10
 
It was a nice mini review, but one glaring error. Isolated System is the song that gets the most repeated plays. It's oddly catchy and haunting
 
Isolated System sounds like the Muse take on Tubular Bells.

More mimicry....

I'd agree with the mini review in that its a decent album but just doesn't sound like Muse in any way whatsoever.

Best song for me at the moment is Animals and song that sounds the most like Muse is Survival.
 
Panic Station sounds more like Talking Heads to me, especially with the odd vocal affectations. More than one song in the second half sounds like an Andrew Lloyd Webber cast off - Explorers in particular, I'm looking at you.

The U2 comparisons are more striking though, Big Freeze is just a crap 2000s era U2 track, Madness sounds like the ******* child of Numb and Queen's I Want To Break Free and the end of Follow Me appears to be Muse's attempt at the outro of Where The Streets Have No Name.

Survival and Unsustainable are utter trash, the latter especially. It's not because it's dubstep, it's because it's **** dubstep allied to crap, trite politics and it sounds totally out of place on the album. That said, Supremacy, Panic Station, Follow Me and a couple of others are decent tracks.
 
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I saw Muse at the O2 last night.

The setlist was pretty good, opening with Unsustainable (minus the singing) and then following on to Supremacy was absolutely delightful.

It was an amazing gig, but it was a lot different from all the other times I've seen them.
Matt Bellamy has become more of a showboater, he goes into the crowd and walks around a lot more than previously. He now takes the microphone off the stand and sings instead of just leaving it on there. In one way it's good but in another it's really bad, on Resistance (song) he used to bust out a lovely keytar and unfortunately this time he just sings.

No New Born was a bit of a disappointment, but I suppose they can't always play it. The opening of Host certainly was amazing and also the inclusion of Sunburn
 
Deep said:
I saw Muse at the O2 last night.

The setlist was pretty good, opening with Unsustainable (minus the singing) and then following on to Supremacy was absolutely delightful.

It was an amazing gig, but it was a lot different from all the other times I've seen them.
Matt Bellamy has become more of a showboater, he goes into the crowd and walks around a lot more than previously. He now takes the microphone off the stand and sings instead of just leaving it on there. In one way it's good but in another it's really bad, on Resistance (song) he used to bust out a lovely keytar and unfortunately this time he just sings.

No New Born was a bit of a disappointment, but I suppose they can't always play it. The opening of Host certainly was amazing and also the inclusion of Sunburn
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I went to this too. I would say it was an awesome gig tainted / ruined by a terrible crowd. We couldn't believe it. It was so tame that we practically walked to the front and people were getting annoyed we were dancing. The crowd were just icy as hell and seemed to think anyone jumping about was a bell end

We seemed to draw people in and eventually the front left got a bit more lively. But I was the only person doing anything to the end of knights of cushions. So lame.

Just to top off we heard several people complaining about scuffs on their shoes o_O

Is it me that's being the nob here? I consider myself a bit of a gig veteran and the rules for me are:

- in the standing area nobody has a set spot
- don't push people hard to move anywhere
- find somewhere where the people have the same idea of fun as you
- if you don't like it, move (this goes both ways)

Perhaps I just get too excited at music and people have a right to be annoyed. But come on, this is standing at a rock concert!

:(

Even Matt said something along the lines of 'look at all these people with their phones out - are you checking your emails or something?!?'
 
Nitefly said:
Even Matt said something along the lines of 'look at all these people with their phones out - are you checking your emails or something?!?'
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The line was something more like "You've bought an iPad to a gig, is that to check your emails or something?"

But I agree with you, the crowd was tame. However, I can live without continuous moshing.
 
Deep said:
The line was something more like "You've bought an iPad to a gig, is that to check your emails or something?"

But I agree with you, the crowd was tame. However, I can live without continuous moshing.
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I cannot :D

A lot of the time it's more jumping about. It's fun when you are group of strangers are belting out the lyrics in a big huddle, really good atmosphere. I tend to avoid it when it's really aggressive because I'm trying to have fun, not get hurt. It's never ever malicious either.

The worst thing you can ever do in a crowd is push somebody in a circle put from the outside if your aren't involved. It's ****ing stupid, cowardly and very dangerous as people aren't expecting it, even if they are involved you can't prepare for some random shunt from behind.
 
Nitefly said:
The worst thing you can ever do in a crowd is push somebody in a circle put from the outside if your aren't involved. It's ****ing stupid, cowardly and very dangerous as people aren't expecting it, even if they are involved you can't prepare for some random shunt from behind.
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It's rare for that to happen anymore.
I was speaking to my mate who was with me, and he said this couple on our left were getting really annoyed by us jumping up and down.
 
Crowds at Muse gigs used to be immense, even up to the Wembley gig in 2007. I remember when that started and the crowd surged forward, for a moment I could lift my feet off the ground and be held in place by the people around me which was a bit disconcerting.

Seeing them in Manchester on the Absolution tour and Doncaster on the OoS tour, I remember the crowd was brilliant. I guess as the shows have got tamer so have the crowd.

You just can't have a Muse show without New Born, Bliss and Citizen Erased either. I'd advise anyone that hasn't seen them to sack off the new shows and buy Hullabaloo on DVD. :p
 
I saw them when they did their Teignmouth shows and the crowd were really good, it was absolutely mad and people were just going bonkers all over the place, it was a great show and roughly around the time that Muse just lost something for me.

I haven't been to a show at the O2 that has had a 'fantastic' crowd and I've been there for quite a lot of shows of huge bands that usually the crowd goes mad for.

It's generally more full of couples, families etc and it's less rowdy, in fact there's minimal dancing usually!

With regards to this album, it's really dreadful and I attempt to wipe from my memory that it exists, even Resistance was better and that was a 6/10 album at best.
 
Bucket said:
With regards to this album, it's really dreadful and I attempt to wipe from my memory that it exists, even Resistance was better and that was a 6/10 album at best.
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I agree. They are dead to me now and I think I have seen my last ever Muse gig unless they go back to OoS or Absolution days, which I very much doubt.
 
Just listened to this album, completely missed it had come out.

There's a lot of hate for unsustainable but I love it, it's just the sort of 'dubstep hybrid' that I like (i don't like pure dubstep)
I also adore isolated system, panic and supremacy as well as another I can'trremember.

As with most Muse albums there are some songs I love and some I hate. But that's good for me.

I always liked Muse as I like symphonic but powerful music (i also like classical, dance, and symphonic metal) basically anything else that is loads of treble and sharp bass (synthesisers, orchestras but with with some detailed bass) I also like build up and break down, fast and slow songs but not many medium speed songs (ie indie)

And that's why Muse hits the spot for me.

Good album, bit different but can still tell its them

Edit.
I went to Myself Muse gig in 2005, it was awesome, i passed out for a bit it was heaving so much!
 
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