The Resistance

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It's not really about the music anymore, is it. It's about the breadth and height of everything Muse do. It's about leaving a jet-stream in the sky. Any tune with a trajectory lower than the cosmos is presumably discarded, with arrangements generally sounding as expensive as battleships (intergalactic battleships, that is). Of course the music is not exactly incidental either; Muse's full-on fifth album The Resistance is packed hard with virtuoso musicianship, rigorous instrumental freak-outs and harmonies beamed between dimensions. It's simply what they do now, no matter how ridiculous it may seem. Long gone are the days of the feisty yet formal English post-grunge band with a falsetto bolt-on. So let the madness commence; "Uprising" gives the Dr Who theme tune a stomping glam makeover, "Undisclosed Desires" is like a prog-rock Justin Timberlake, "Guiding Light" is the sound of Elvis' "Can't Help Falling In Love" being jettisoned into the ether in an escape pod and "Exogenesis Symphony Part 1 (Overture)" is ambitious equal parts 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Flaming Lips and a belting Brian May style guitar solo sent straight from the roof of Buckingham Palace. They've not moved on enormously from the grandiosity of Black Holes & Revelations, not that it matters--they've found the place where they're most comfortable. That place just happens to be balanced on the precipice, travelling at light speed in expensive space-suits. --James Berry