Muse
The Resistance

Over three years after the worldwide success of "Black Holes and Revelations," Muse returns to the scene with their fifth album, aptly titled "The Resistance." It must be said right away that these three years were used by the band to calmly work on new material, recorded almost entirely in Italy and produced by the band themselves, without the aid of big names like Rich Costey and Mauro Pagani, who had been involved previously.

What Bellamy's group presents us today is an album that decisively and convincingly departs from the sound and groove of their previous production, favoring those elements (operatic or electronic, depending on the case) that in "Black Holes" had made room for guitars, which here are almost always in the background. What strikes about this album, even from the first listen, is once again the heterogeneity and vastness of the project, able to blend seemingly antithetical musical genres like prog rock and R'n'b, eventually treading paths of operatic rock previously glimpsed in "Absolution." Especially for this reason, it is quite challenging to give an overall assessment of the work, a judgment that can justify minor episodes (and there are many) included solely for the purpose of "selling," and tracks in which Bellamy's technical, but above all interpretative, awareness shows us the real capabilities of this group.

The initial martial rhythm of "Uprising" turns the alienating keyboard riff into a brilliant yet misleading intro regarding the album's true directions. A track without infamy and without praise, Uprising stands out mainly for its "single" groove, making it a perfect hit. The following "Resistance", instead, after an evocative intro, embraces a piano arpeggio and a soft melody supported by Dominic Howard's driving rhythm, then unfolds into a chorus that seems to recover the pathos of "Absolution" yet marries with the formal perfection of "Black Holes." The piece closes with an outro featuring Bellamy in good vocal form after an album, like the previous one, which was subdued in many parts. The 31-year-old singer indeed bears the duty of holding the pieces together, with a more coherent and consequent interpretation and perhaps also less restrained, compared to "Black Holes," which instead saw a continuous change of register and vocal approach to the pieces. The third track, "Undisclosed desires", continues the path started with "Supermassive Black Hole", yet sets it in an R'n'b atmosphere that caters to the U.S. market, resulting rather plasticy and indigestible. The subsequent "United States of Eurasia" also fails to impress the listener much, despite the beautiful voice and piano intro and the Led Zeppelin-reminiscent Arabic interlude: the call to the somewhat pompous epics of Queen is too evident, materializing here in rather kitsch choruses (many features of Queen result kitsch when extrapolated from their context). The ghost track retrieving a Chopin "Nocturne" (curiously renamed Collateral Damage) ideally closes the first part of the album, with Bellamy showcasing his more interpretative than technical, in this case, abilities on the piano.

The second part of the album opens with the epic pop of "Guiding Light", a very à-la U2 piece that starts very well but loses itself a bit in the crumpled melody of the chorus, only to be ennobled again in the first real guitar solo and the bridge where Bellamy gives yet another demonstration of his vocal range. The sixth track, "Unnatural Selection", is the closest to the almost punk rhythm of the second album, because after a brief voice-organ intro the guitar launches into a riff similar to that of "New Born" and in a catchy chorus, although not particularly original. After a slow-motion solo, the song resumes the initial theme, making way for the beautiful keyboard arpeggio and falsetto of "Mk Ultra": it's almost like hearing Coldplay performed by Dream Theater, blasphemous as it may appear. And if it's necessary to praise the band for the good production work done so far, surely the same cannot be said for the lyrics, always too pathetic and over-the-top in their attempt to paint an "Orwellian" image of reality. But we continue. The melody of "I Belong to You (Mon Cœur S'ouvre à ta Voix)" rests on a nice rhythmic piano, only to dissolve in a nearly musical-like bridge, where Bellamy sings in French, intertwining with the violins in a 1950s film ending. An original piece in its intentions and finally well-achieved and compact even in execution.

In fact, "I Belong to You" closes the album itself, leaving room for something completely different. The final part of "The Resistance" indeed diverges entirely from what the band has proposed so far. "Exogenesis" is actually a symphony in which we finally perceive the band's potential, especially Bellamy's, in their entirety, a sort of Tarantino of 2000s music, capable of uniting sacred and profane within a single album, often even within a single song. The almost operatic falsetto of the Overture indirectly cites the glories of "Micro Cuts", with the dark violin arpeggio and the guitar supporting bass and drums. The intro of "Cross-Pollination" is instead entrusted to the piano, with nostalgic echoes of "Absolution" even in the epic continuation à-la Apocalypse please, touching the emotional and lyrical peak of the album. The album closes with the rarefied melody and the romantic piano of "Redemption", in one of the most passionate and sincere tributes to classical music made by a rock band in recent times. Composing these pieces takes less effort than one might think; the challenge lies in presenting them with seriousness and conviction, as Bellamy's band has indeed managed to do.

An album that surprises with the heterogeneity of arrangements and melodic and production solutions, where a certain underlying coherence begins to appear in the project that Muse has been carrying out for ten years. Perhaps this band will never make the big leap (which they deserve) into less reassuring and intuitive territories, and perhaps they will not even enter the history of rock music - but surely it is in great health, and it can and will surely make its mark in the future when perhaps the pressure will be less, and it will be easier for Bellamy to focus on what he is truly capable of doing. For now, however, Muse is in good shape with an album that overall surpasses the previous one, and that, though uneven and imperfect, confirms the trio as one of the most interesting and least predictable mainstream bands around today.

The rating is an average between the first 2/3 of the album (***) and the last part (*****).