Photo courtesy of Warner Records
ALEX HOBEN
editor-in-chief
alexandra.hoben@my.tccd.edu
Muse is back with a new album after a four-year drought and are as anti-establishment as ever, and it still hits hard.
The album, “Will Of The People”, was released on Aug. 26 and it is a trip from start to finish. The synths were electric in their melodies, the lyrics were full of thinly-veiled criticisms of how our society is currently run and of course the guitar riffs shredded their way into my soul.
Lead singer Matt Bellamy described this album as “a greatest hits album – of new songs,” and it shows. Listening to this album brought me back to when I heard “Uprising” for the first time and I was happy for the callback.
The first four songs feel like you’re witnessing a post-apocalyptic feud. We see the conflict between the masses trying to survive and their government overlords, with the people crying out for change.
The first track, the namesake of the album, is a hard-rocking anthem for anarchy. They explicitly say, “We’ll smash your institutions to pieces,” right there in the lyrics with a choir chanting in the background for the “will of the people”. The hard rock instrumentals with the hoarse crowd all shouting merged well for the message in the lyrics.
Then, in response to that show of defiance, the next song is a deliberate voice from the perceived enforcers. It highly encourages the masses to fall back into line and then they will see the greatness of the society that is already there. The lyrics and the technological synthed vocals paint a vision of a rigid idealistic society with no free will. In the next two songs, you follow the story of the public’s rebellion against this plea for “Compliance”.
From there the story takes a break, and instead we get to the more experimental songs on the album. One of which stands out the most, “You Make Me Feel Like It’s Halloween”, just because it’s completely different from every other track.
The lyrics are remarkably simple compared to the deeper yet explicit messages of the other songs, but somehow this was probably the most fun to listen to. You can tell that this was the one they were just trying out different things, pushing themselves and their music.
Somehow all the jarring elements happening still mesh for this number. There’s a grungy guitar solo in the middle of the song with the electric organ and a robotic voice choir all working together to crescendo into a crazy rock synth symphony. I know that I’ll be blasting this alongside “Thriller” when spooky season starts soon.
What’s great is that these songs all show Muse’s strengths with a fresh twist here and there to keep the listener wondering what will happen next. Very few bands are able to capture the same apathetic yet anarchist tone that Muse does in their songs. This all culminates in the last song of the album, where each lyric is a reminder of the problems in our current society and how screwed we are. This is the only explicit song on the album and it is heavily explicit at that.
Overall, the album is full of songs that a listener would definitely enjoy if they have liked the work that Muse has put out in the past.
