Muse - The Resistance

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The Resistance was recorded in Northern Italy over the course of the last year and was produced by the band themselves, and mixed by Mark 'Spike' Stent. Uprising is released one week earlier and the band tours through the UK in November. Naturally, every ticket sold out within minutes of release.

That's the basics: what you need to know. What you will be asking is… where will Muse take us with this new album? Does The Resistance mark a departure from their previous epic releases Absolution (2003) and Black Holes and Revelations (2006)? Or does it form a triptych with these challenging, thoughtful, super-massive albums?

In some sense, Muse do both. In terms of sound and sonic vision The Resistance is their most ambitious long-player yet, which is clearly saying something. They have blown up the robo-funk/monster riff/stadium space rock sound of Black Holes and widened their viewfinder even further to take in an even greater horizon of sound. For Muse, reverting to a successful template would be simply meaningless.

As singer-guitarist Matt Bellamy told Mojo magazine recently, "There are some tracks that really take an influence from contemporary R&B, particularly [the producer] Timbaland - heavy beats, syncopation, very melodic, rhythmic vocals. Dom [Howard - drummer] has done all the drum programming. By the end the album's almost purely classical in style. It's not orchestration you'd normally expect from a rock band and we've done all the arranging and scoring. We've just been in Milan doing the orchestral recording with about 40 musicians - great players and really up for experimentation." Matt is talking here about 'Exogenesis' - a symphony in three parts: surely their most ambitious, impressive statement yet.

The privileged few to have peeked behind the curtain as Muse rehearse for their sold out UK tour reveal new songs that sound simply 'enormous'. However, lest we get carried away by the bombast cliché that is all too easy to pin to this band, there are again moments of delicate, slight beauty. Evidence I Belong To You where Bellamy sings "I travelled half the world just to say I belong to you…" Matt continues: "'Undisclosed Desires' is the first song we've written where I don't play guitar or piano." Furthermore, it is an unlikely setting for slap bass courtesy of Chris Wolstenholme, "But on that song it just seemed to work, so we kept it in," he declares.

Listen to Rock Playlist - 01-08-2010

Also See: ilikemusic.com | Muse

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