Album Review: Muse - The 2nd Law

Muse
The 2nd Law
Rating: Meh

Muse are a perfectly decent prog-rock band that has never put out a bad album per se. I always find a couple of songs I love and the rest usually passes pleasantly enough. My problem with Muse over the years is that you never really know who Muse is. Their sound is always clouded by their influences (Radiohead, Queen, U2, Rush) to the point where you can essentially categorize all their songs by who they sound like. The teaser trailer for their latest record The 2nd Law announced pretty specifically that this would be Muse's dubstep record and, honestly, I would have been more impressed with them had they embraced that direction wholeheartedly. Unfortunately, however, that teaser was in fact a bait and switch. While there are some dubstep influences on this record, as a whole, it is just more of the same Queen and U2 style tracks with a few meandering side trips into Radioheadland.

Muse usually functions best the more over the top they go. When they scale things back is when they fade into the background. On tracks like "Survival," which has to be the most outrageously wacky track Muse has ever record, the silliness of its Queen cum Scissor Sisters cabaret rock is its most winning attribute, throwing in barroom pianos, Wagnerian choirs, Brian May screaming guitars, and a swooning orchestra. You almost expect cannon fire at the end.



The snarling attack of "Liquid State" ratchets up the guitars a bit, pulling off a more Foo Fighters like sound that actually suits the band, while the ridiculous art-funk of "Panic Station" could have been an outtake from The Power Station's first record, full of discoey guitars, slap bass, and dated drum machine flourishes.

Of course, the majority of the focus on the record will be on the "dubstep" tracks, of which really there are only three. Teaser trailer single "The 2nd Law: Unsustainable," is the most directly influenced, combining heavy bass drops with Muse's typically over the top guitar approach. While it is interesting seeing them combine the two, they don't do much with it that hasn't already been done before.



"Madness" rides along a pulsing bassline and subtle throb of electronics, but honestly, U2 has done this sort of thing in their sleep since the days of Zooropa.



The most effective use of dubstep elements appear on "Follow Me" which has a nice sense of drama and build, collapsing in sighing bass drops, echoing the work of pop-dubstep masters Nero.



But the rest of the album falls into the same traps as all their albums, just another set of slightly memorable tracks that hang too close to their influences to really coalesce into something original or exciting. From the Radiohead-lite "Animals," screechy Queen-isms of opener "Supremacy," to the U2 aping "Big Freeze," these tracks are blandly forgettable tracks that you will likely skip over to get to the more interesting tracks, few that there are.

The 2nd Law is far more interesting on paper than it is in actuality. All the talk of it being an up-to-the-minute clash between stadium rock and dubstep comes across here as merely slight window dressing that is skirted away in favor of more of the same old same old. I don't know why I keep hoping these mega-bands will, for once, do something outside the norm. I guess I should give Muse credit for at least trying to incorporate some of these sounds into their music, but when a band that wholeheartedly embraced dubstep like Korn makes a better album than you, there is something sad about that.

Rating Scale:

Chilfos: masterpiece; coolest thing I've heard in ages.

Woof Daddy: excellent; just a hair away from being a masterpiece.

Grrrr: very good; will definitely be considered for my top releases of the year.

Yeah Daddy Make Me Want It: good; definitely invites further listens and piques one's interest for more material.

Meh: not horrible, but certainly not great; could have either been polished, trimmed, or re-thought.

Jeez Lady: what the hell happened? Just plain bad. They should hang their heads in shame and be forced to listen to Lady Gaga ad nauseam as penance.

Tragicistani: so bad, armed villagers with pitchforks and torches should run the artist out of the country for inflicting this abomination on the human race.