![]() You can practically hear his head burst like a watermelon.Įlsewhere, it’s business as (un)usual. Meanwhile, ‘Invincible’’s military drumroll rhythm is topped by Matt Bellamy’s best Tom-from-Keane impression until, at three minutes 51, there’s the familiar shrill guitar histrionics, as the slumbering Muse juggernaut wakes and advances like it’s rolling over Chaplin’s podgy face. A love song about black holes, revelations, the end of the world and that sort of thing. ‘Starlight’ has that tinkly piano melody and could – whisper it – be a love song. Some, in fact, could grace a Keane album. And this time not all the pianos sound like they’re falling into hell. There’s the sound of ‘Enjoy The Silence’-era Depeche Mode electro (‘Map Of The Problematique’) and a smoky Frank Sinatra croon that quotes the opera song ‘Ave Maria’. Elsewhere they’re evolving in other ways. The sexy shimmy-fuck-yeah sound of ‘SMBH’ is unique. ![]() They do, however, grasp the, er, gravity, of this Supermassive Black Hole: Muse have changed. It has, suffice to say, scared some of the fanboys who can happily talk about the multiple ways the world may end, but can’t quite stomach talk of singular lust. Muse may have been inspired to write this by dancing to Franz in New York clubs, but they’ve made a classic of their own the sort that Marilyn Manson would make if he were half as subversive as he thought he was. It’s called ‘Supermassive Black Hole’ and its the most serious and hilarious musical moment of the year. It’s the one with a daring electro shuffle, like Kylie grooving with a goth Prince. Why bother with, say, the shonky bits of Sheffield when you’ve got the entire cosmos to sing about? Take the first single. ![]() Muse are classic whipping boys for the Keeping It Real campaigners, having never written songs about bouncers, waiting for taxis or fancying girls on dancefloors. When did using the imagination become a crime? It’s as if the whole rock canon has been assembled by a committee of sociologists rather than hedonists, madmen and geniuses. Toto, I don’t think we’re in Albion anymore…īarking stuff, obviously, but why does music have to be so serious, so authentic? Rock is the only artform where authenticity is held supreme – more important than moving or provoking you. Except it’s not this world: Cydonia is the region of Mars where evidence of pyramids and oceans are the best clue to prove there was life there once. It’s The Book Of Revelations gone rock, and it’s the most overblown thing in the world. Then there’s laser guns, explosions and sirens before a choir of deathly damned begin a dreadful, unearthly wail. Horses! It’s as if the Four Horsemen themselves have come from the underworld by the closing seconds of track 10. So, just how bombastic, overblown, wilfully obscure, magnificent, portentous, histrionic, eccentric and mental is Muse’s new record? Well, there’s a moment, as ‘Hoodoo’ morphs into epic finale ‘Knights Of Cydonia’, when a piano that sounds like it’s heralding the destruction of the universe gives way to the sound of galloping horses.
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