Muse
Absolution

THE REVIEW

After two years since their second studio album, and just one year since their last music release (the Hullaballo double cd-dvd), the English trio Muse returns to the scene across Europe with an album preceded by a pointed advertising campaign and an eager anticipation experienced mostly online by their many fans. If with Origin Of Symmetry they had at least surprised, with baroque arpeggios and exaggerated arrangements, those who saw them as the much more "vulgar and plebeian" Radiohead clones convincing themselves they were not a forced cover band of the Oxford extraterrestrials, with Absolution they surprise by having composed an album devoid of meaning starting with their first track "Intro", a few seconds just to remind us how pretentious this group is, which in its melodramatic posturing is, at times, almost endearing.

Let's move on to "Apocalypse Please", a song with minimalist arrangement and well-played piano in a usual verse-chorus-verse scheme. It's better to skip over Time Is Running Out, a silly song, a great appeal for those who make MTV their only source of music. Sing For Absolution is the first beautiful track on the album, different, reminiscent of the 80s, here Bellamy gives an excellent performance even if the lyrics are not very impactful. With Stockholm Syndrome we understand that these three have taken a wrong turn, the riff is powerful but for the umpteenth time Muse give the impression of making fake raw music, fake underground. Fallin Away With You is an anonymous song, sweet but without verve. After Interlude, we are met with Hysteria, a powerful but too simple song, Blackout, nice and has the merit of being different with a nice string section and the best track Butterflies & Hurricanes, beautiful, emotional, courageous, raising the level of an album little more than mediocre.

TSP has the same discourse as Stockholm Syndrome, while Endlessly brings back memories of the 80s presenting itself as pleasant. Thoughts of a Dying Atheist has nice lyrics but nothing more and the finale is entrusted to Ruled By Secrecy, a beautiful piano track, melancholic, well sung.

A nice ending for an album that isn't horrible but remains a tremendous disappointment. Bewitched by MTV's sirens and resting on too many compliments, they have proposed something unengaging, unoriginal, and that feels very fake. From them, we would have expected something more given the two previous commendable albums, but apparently, the problem with this group is not the lack of musical technique but of intellectual inconsistency, in this album there isn't a shred of meaning, nor something particularly innovative. A shame, a shame a thousand times a shame.