Muse have built a reputation on pomp, with grandiose song arrangements, and singer Matt Bellamy's dramatic falsetto an ever-present trill on the landscape of rock music. On the British trio's fifth album,
The Resistance
, the pomp is still present to point of being plain pompous - not to mention a little copycat at times, with the band sounding even more like Queen than they already did.
First single,
Uprising
, as a colleague so rightly pointed out, sounds like Queen playing the
Doctor Who
theme. And I hate to get picky, but the catchy mechanical riff sprinkled through the song is a rip-off of a hook by American band Battles on the excellent
Atlas
.
Gone, too, is the predominance of the band's powerful sonic rock, and this time round it's a more symphonic sound, with modern-day R&B touches, and 80s influences from Ultravox to novelty act The Timelords coming through. There are also more instruments than ever before with three-part symphony and final track
Exogenesis
involving 40 musicians.
The title track is
Night At the Opera
-era Queen, with the vocal harmonies on the lines "could be wrong, could be wrong" recalling
Bohemian Rhapsody
, and on the throbbing eastern-influenced
United States of Eurasia
Bellamy does his best Freddie Mercury impression to date, as he wanders around, politicking on the Arabian Peninsula.
The most wild and rock 'n' roll they get is on seven-minute long
Unnatural Selection
, a rumbling mid-album foot-planter with back to basics riffing and classic fist-pumping Muse grunt.
The album's lighter and more jaunty moments provide some of its highlights, with the Depeche Mode-meets-Spandau Ballet of
Undisclosed Desires
a slow grower, and on the rocky romance tune
I Belong To You
Bellamy opens up his heart and it's really quite touching.
Exogenesis
is presumably meant to bring the album to a dramatic end, but at best it comes off like an intense film soundtrack bringing an epic film to a close.
The Resistance
is ambitious and over-the-top, but hardly wild and mind-warping like all the best OTT music should be.
Scott Kara
