THE RESISTANCE
Muse
Warner Brothers
*** 1/2
Matt Bellamy is one restless mofo. Since their 1999 debut, Showbiz, he has grown progressively more bonkers and grandiose, garnering a serious cross-section of admirers and worshippers along the way. The band found the right balance in 2003 with Absolution, then left us reeling with follow up Black Holes and Revelations and its barmy conclusion, Knights of Cydonia.
But while the previous albums' many OTT moments were complemented, even enhanced, by several tumbling rock numbers of brutality and synth-enhanced beauty, Bellamy has stretched the prog-rock elastic band even further on the band's fifth long-player, The Resistance – with seldom a commercial moment to fall back on.
It doesn't begin this way. Stomping, call-to-arms opener Uprising and the title track kick things off in a fairly straight-up manner. Undisclosed Desires, meanwhile, is positively Savage Garden-esque. Then the strings become more prominent, the mad violinist comes to play, and United States of Eurasia/Collaterel Damage lands. Delicate piano sequences bookend a Bollywood-lashed merging of We Are the Champions and Bohemiam Rhapsody – at times sounding more like Queen than Queen themselves. It's exhilerating, cringe-worthy and exhilerating all at once, and encapsulates the album's unweilding promise that more is better: Guiding Light has moments of sincere tenderness but ends up petering out to a somewhat feckless conclusion; the seven-minute, often-frenzied Unnatural Selection would have been better delivered in half the time; and I Belong to You (Mon cœur s'ouvre à ta voix) switches, inexplicably, from bouncy R&B to a 1940s French matinee vibe – complete with clarinet solo.
And all this before the three-part symphony finale Exogenesis, which seems to float away on a string-laden stream of grandeur. While some won't intially get it – particularly those drawn to the band through heavier moments such as Stockholm Syndrome – it, like most of the album, will eventually win you over.
Waiting to see what Bellamy will deliver next has almost become a sport in the world of music. Perhaps he'll pull the reigns in next time and realise that subtlety can be just as mind-blowing – even while preaching the world's imminent demise. Let's hope we're around to hear it.
Key track: Uprising.
