Album Review: Muse - The 2nd Law

16 November 2012 | 10:11 am | Mac McNaughton

This may well be the key to album number seven being the return to grandeur that we all know Muse are capable of.

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Now that we've lived with the Teignmouth trio's sixth album for a little while, those who wanted to hate it have blindly hated it. But what of those of us who have actually listened properly? Their last, The Resistance, was rightly derided for being bloated and largely unlistenable, but there was hope that it was only a temporary foray up the higher reaches of their own colons. But first single and “Official song of the Olympics”, Survival, really was the sound of Matt Bellamy trying to win a gold medal for heaving out the biggest musical dump.

Sometimes they even get catchy, delivering disco-rock sing-alongs, Gossip-style in Panic Station, or indulging Bond-theme fantasies in opener, Supremacy. Then with Madness, Bellamy delivers his most impassioned vocals since Sing For Absolution. It's almost enough to forgive the Resistance indulgences and celebrate the return of the band being great once again. But the sincerity is not followed through and while the rest of The 2nd Law belongs to the instrumental superpowers of Matt, Chris and Dom, Bellamy's lyrics and vocals are the let down. His heart's just not in it. Explorers even sounds like a note-for-note remake of Invincible.

There is light at the end of the tunnel. The final act sees Chris Wolstenholme take the mic for Save Me and Liquid State, the former exhibiting a tender falsetto that crumbles hearts, the latter a balls-out rocker. They sound like an all-new band and it's exciting to hear these two new sides of the towering guitarist. This may well be the key to album number seven being the return to grandeur that we all know Muse are capable of.