Honest and easy-reading reviews of music, movies and books.

From Mind Control Conspiracies to Space Opera

There's a time in every band when risks need to be taken. Muse has done it with Black Holes and Revelations.

They have not only succeeded, but brought music to the 21st century, sonically and lyrically.

Bellamy, Wolstenholme and Howard, three lads from Devon, had already proved in 2003's Absolution that they weren't just another clone of Yorke and company. In Black Holes and Revelations, Muse take us from electronica to flamenco, from mariachi to Queen-like choruses and from an apparently pop love song to an ultra heavy politically charged episode.

Ludicrous? Maybe, but the end result is an album defying what you know about music genres and your tastes. Muse decided to explore new paths and don't care a fuck about their fans expectations. Way to go. Creating music should go beyond being popular and doing what the market asks for.

The frantic Take A Bow opens targeting an unnamed leader for failing the world. Pick your most hatred asshole and I'm sure many of us will coincide while singing “you corrupt and bring corruption to all that you touch.”

Matt Bellamy spits his words surrounded by escalating synthesizer and is later joined by the fury of drums, bass and guitar.

Then we get what could be considered a love song: Starlight. A joyful piano melody over bass and drums. This is the track that gives the name to the album while taking us to space.

And when you thought that things couldn't get weirder the groovy and funky falsetto ridden Supermassive Black Hole adds glaciers melting and superstars sucked into black holes (supermassive ones) to the mix. Time to get all of our alien friends dancing disco style.

“Man! That sucks!” No it doesn't. It's hypnotic, incredibly catchy and, with a few bottles of wine around, super fun.

Map Of The Problematique brings apocalyptic visions back again under Wolstenholme's synth-led bass. Could there be love at the end of the world? Let's wait just a few more years and some of us may find out.

The beautifully arpeggiated Soldier's Poem starts with a piano that sounds like the King's Love Me Tender; it also has the nostalgia and chorus style of some of his songs. But even that can't distracts us when this particular soldier reminds us we're living in a world full of shit. Dammit, Bellamy is right: “there's no justice in the world and there never was.”

Some could say it's music for clever people, perhaps, but if that doesn't put a smile on your face then a listen to Invincible should do it.

I see Invincible as an anthem of freedom, the need to be real individuals. It's a brighter vision of hope where everything's not fucked up, yet.

Invincible is charged with a clearer message that goes straight to mind and heart, even when blurred by the drums of a marching army and an ethereal electric guitar.

Please, please, let's use this chance to turn things around

The second part of the song starts with a soul-lifting bass and then it's all crescendo until Bellamy punches us on the face with his shrilling guitar.

Everything is now ready to “join forces underground” when Assassin hits us with the speediest and heaviest Muse in Black Holes and Revelations. Metal oriented fans will feel at home, this is the cut that connects us with the band's previous works.

Assassin is a step forward in the message that Invincible started. It does more than making us think; it's a call to action.

The time has come for you to shoot your leaders down

Every reader of David Icke, Bellamy is one of them, will recognize the Bluebeam project under the hood of Exo-Politics, a fast paced tune where zetas, mind-controlling satellites and world governments start a new phase in their plan.

Then we get two complex pieces: the Mexican guitar laden City of Delusion, which includes mariachi trumpets and a powerful bass in my favorite part of the song, and the Spanish flamenco inspired Hoodoo that slowly builds around nightmarish lyrics before turning into Phantom of the Opera style.

Muse chose to finish their journey out of this world, so they take us to northern Mars in Knights of Cydonia. It must be Mars; I doubt the Greeks had laser guns in their Cydonia.

Asking how the hell they got horses on the red planet is something that only a man who writes “how can we win, when fools can be kings?” could answer.

Knights of Cydonia beginnings remind me the Pink Floyd of Pompei until it unleashes a riffing like in Black Sabbath's greatest days.

Definitely the most intense part of an album that closes with an operatic Bellamy shouting “no one's gonna take me alive!” That's the spirit guys.

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