Preposterous.
Overblown. Melodramatic. Pretentious. Oh yes, when Radiohead muttered
that MUSE should "lighten up", it looks like their comments
sent Matt Bellamy and chums into a contrary fury.
So rather than mellow out to produce their own version of 'The Man
Who', MUSE have thrown every toy available out of their pram and then
thrown the pram itself down a metal staircase, in the process creating
an album perfect for the start of the century. The nineteenth century.
Check this little lot out for a list of influences/reference points.
Composer Hector Berlioz, whose pieces regularly elicited hysterical
weeping in Paris in the 1830s. 'Tocatta And Fugue In D Minor', the
classical masterwork that became the template for many of prog's most
grandiose excesses during the 1970s. Freddie Mercury. Duetting on
'Barcelona'. And squealing to high heaven during 'Bohemian Rhapsody'.
Oh, and a bit of Radiohead. For a second.
Chuck all that into rock's famed Pressure Cooker Of Fame and Grand
Expectations and you have a heavy metal space opera performed by the
Viennese Symphonic Orchestra featuring the Circus Archaos scrap iron
rhythm section. Riffs are hard and unnecessarily complex, Matt squeals
with an almost ridiculous sense of torture, the theatre is blood red
and magnificent, and the whole affair is fantastically over the top.
Christopher Lee would've been proud. Kurt Cobain, you suspect, would
have dug it too.
Highlights? Jesus: this is the sound of armageddon, do you not understand?
Can you not feel the pain, savour the torment, feel the anguish? Oh,
OK then. 'Space Dementia' is like the end of A Zed And Two Noughts
being interrupted by a crashing meteor and an invasion of blood thirsty
aliens bearing machine guns and spitting green bile. 'Screenager'
is 'Trust In Me' from The Jungle Book soundtrack, with a gamelan backing.
No really.
It gets more outrageous, as only an album with songs called 'Hyper
Music' and 'Megalomania' can. 'New Born' soars on a falsetto from
hell before going into fuzz overdrive. 'Bliss' sees Matt flailing
at power chords while Rome burns. And on 'Micro Cuts', the only song
of the album where MUSE go too far, the singer attempts to recall
the cacophony of Madame Castafiore from the Tintin adventures. You
can almost see Captain Haddock clasping his hands over his ears in
disgust.
The thing is, though, even when MUSE go so far over the top they make
Liberace sound like Low, they can't help but impress. Like those Gary
Larson cartoons that aren't funny but still entertaining because you
can see what he was aiming for, the crimes in 'The Origin Of Symmetry'
are worthy ones: ambition, imagination, grand scope and, yes, having
a vaguely theatrical, extremely sick sense of humour. Just look at
that title, for God's sake! You don't call your album 'The Origin
Of Symmetry' without knowing exactly what you're laying yourself open
to.
Like Blofeld on a power trip. Fronting a heavy metal band. In space.
Don't even think about trying to resist.
Ian Watson