Muse-ic to my Ears

RIYL: The Killers, Franz Ferdinand, The Bravery

One of my all time favorite bands, Muse, recently released their 6th album, The 2nd Law yesterday, 9/25.

In case you don't know Muse well already, their sound is usually super "rise against the man" with rebellious lyrics and heavy guitar, keyboard, and drums. However, this album, in my opinion, is quite a step in a softer/ instrumental direction, and Ima be real, I am digging it.

So, for whatever reason, Itunes has decided to torture me and the rest of the Muse loving world, and has not made the album for sale yet. Not that I was planning on buying them on iTunes anyways, that would be conforming to the system, and the man doesn't own me (I've been listening to Muse while writing this post, I don't know if you can tell). Anyways, I've been listening on sketchy websites, here is an okay-quality link to the entire album from the YouTube.



The album starts off strong with Supremacy, but slowly transitions into a much softer sound, Madness and Isolated System being two slower highlights. Here is a link to Madness, it is the only single that has been officially released on the interwebs.



It's very pop-esque as far as the "ma-ma-ma-madness" background vocals goes, but the lead singing is significantly softer and calmer than Muse's usual tracks. The soft singing continues through out the song, with no apparent build-up, or passionate chorus of sorts. There are some parts of harmonization in the song that even sound a bit like Queen, their sound is totally different. However, while some fans may be disappointed to see this more subdued version of Muse's sound, I personally find it refreshing and a smart change.

However, while I do really like this album, my favorite Muse album will always be Black Holes and Revelations. Here are some of my favorites from this album. The music here is way more upbeat and angsty in my opinion, and I enjoy it more.