Muse: "The Resistance"
Recently, a friend of mine likened Muse to Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon: they take progressive rock and dumb it down so that any idiot can understand it and feel like they grasp complex music. As harsh as this sounds, I can tell you that, after several listens to Muse’s latest offering, The Resistance, the comparison is certainly not far off. However, unlike The Dark Side of the Moon, which is a fairly enjoyable affair overall, Resistance is a bloated affair through-and-through, chock-full of vague, mindless political sloganeering and insufferably boring instrumentals.
By listening to the first song, “Uprising,” one might get an almost positive impression of the album. A rollicking drum track and catchy keyboards mix with Matthew Bellamy’s spouting of shout-alongs to create a less-than exciting but still serviceable pump-up anthem. Next, on the title track, Bellamy and a gang of backup singers try to out-whine each other over an ultimately forgettable instrumental pitter patter. I found myself hoping the song was almost over in less than a minute. The following song, “Undisclosed Desires,” is every bit as revolting vocally, but comes close to making up for it by being somewhat catchy. Unfortunately, any smile remaining on your lips will be wiped out by the slobbering pile of annoying that comes next, “The Untied States of Eurasia.” Never has Muse’s aping of Queen been so shameless, as a political statement it is embarrassingly immature. “Guiding Light” continues in much the same way, albeit with a heavy-handedly sentimental touch. Choice lyrical bits include “loved by numbers/you’re losing life’s wonder.” As far as I can tell, the next two tracks, “Unnatural Selection” and “MK Ultra” serve no purpose besides fellating Bellamy’s sizeable ego. However, those who have survived thus far are in for a treat with “I Belong to You.” Although not a great song by any measure, right now it is a welcome relief from the crushing headache the previous few tracks gave me, and it has a certain swing to it. Like every other song on the album, though, it overstays its welcome by a good two or three minutes. The album concludes with the “Exogenesis” trilogy, which is essentially a 12 minute borefest. Plus, by my calculations, Muse are about 37 years late to the “finishing an album with a trilogy” game.
I was not expecting to like The Resistance. Of the handful of their songs that I had been exposed to previously, they were all either boring (“Stockholm Syndrome”) or just plain bad (“Knights of Cydonia”). But this album really takes the cake. I guess this is what I get for being open-minded and trying something I probably wasn’t going to like.
Overall score: 3.0/10
-Malcolm Barnes
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