For their fifth studio album, ‘The Resistance’, Muse have created the most ridiculous, overblown yet in places most stunning album of their career, indulging their favourite paranoid themes of state control and eccentric conspiracy theories. Lyrically, it is also Matt Bellamy’s most personal record, playing like an open declaration of love to his wife.

First song and lead single ‘Uprising’ is a stomping glam rock reimagining of the Dr Who theme tune and sets the lyrical tone of the album – with its talk of ‘endless red tape to keep the truth confined’ and acts as a call to arms to fight oppressive governments and ‘take the power back’. Although this may sound a bit like the rantings of a sixth-form Marxist, this is quickly dispelled on next song ‘Resistance’. Matt Bellamy passionately asserts that ‘Love is our resistance’, suggesting that good old love is the best weapon against the tyranny of Thought Police and oppressive state control. This is done over an almost laughable Pet Shop Boys-esque backdrop of melodious keyboards and over-the-top backing vocals.

It’s hard to listen to ‘The Resistance’ without glimpsing the vivid cinematic world being conjured up. It plays like the soundtrack to an epic sci-fi film, depicting a dystopian world controlled by a totalitarian state. Like all good sci-fi writers, Muse know the genres biggest advantage is the ability to address the scary issues of the day in a direct manner – the futuristic, unfamiliar settings rendering the subversive themes more palatable to a mass audience. They use this tactic to great effect on ‘The Resistance’, shielding their mainstream audience from the provocative and frightening subject matter with pure escapist musical nonsense.

This is most evident in the fantastically extravagant and grandiose ‘United States of Eurasia’. Imagine Queen performing a national anthem for the New World Order, complete with ridiculously exaggerated key changes, and you’re somewhere close. Hidden within this operatic nonsense, though, is the heart and soul of Bellamy’s nightmarish vision – the all-conquering state annihilating free-will and individuality, selling mass control and indoctrination as world peace and harmony.

Not all of the album is as ambitious as all this though. Perhaps in an effort to avoid scaring off the majority of their audience with the sheer lunacy of it all, ‘MK Ultra’ and ‘Undisclosed Desire’ recall earlier fan favourites ‘Plug in Baby’ and ‘Supermassive Black Hole’. Likewise, ‘Guiding Light’ sounds like Muse on auto-pilot, although lyrically it is a touchingly open ode directed to Mrs Bellamy. Although these are decent enough songs in their own right, on an album dealing in such grand scales they feel like nothing more than filler. The worst culprit being ‘I Belong to You’, a plodding cabaret-esque romp which ends with Bellamy crooning in French. It’s at times like these you feel the album could have benefited from the guiding hand of a producer, but such self-produced indulgences are forgiven when we get to the albums gloriously over-the-top finale. If a producer were enrolled to sharpen the album up, you’d think the first thing to fall to the cutting-room floor would be a preposterously overblown three-song symphony dealing with mankind’s origins in outer space and the mass exodus of Earth to repopulate another planet. Yet here it is in all its intended glory. Composed entirely by Bellamy and coming in at just under fifteen minutes, ‘Exogenesis:Symphony’ is a beautifully orchestrated piece which shows off his virtuoso musicianship to the full – building and releasing tension and creating an unsettling atmosphere to frame the nightmarish visions the album evokes.

Although a little hit and miss, there is no doubt that Muse have made one of the most striking and captivating albums of the year. In a society where surveillance and state influence is becoming more and more apparent, ‘The Resistance’ could possibly become the most important political album of the decade.

For more information on Muse visit there official site at:

http://muse.mu/