Wow I've been a lazy bastard for the past week...blame the holidays. Anyways, here's the beginning of the Top 10 of 2009:
#10
Muse
The Resistance
7.3/10
I’ll admit I was somewhat…concerned…about this album prior to its release. Can you blame me? Muse produced
Absolution, one of the finest albums to be released this decade, and then followed that up with
Black Holes & Revelations, which, although good, was definitely a step back. Several songs still blend together even to this day for me, where it seems like Bellamy & Co. just ran out of ideas. Even the great moments on
Black Holes were a hint that the band was moving further and further away from their sound on
Absolution and further into electronic experimentation with their music.
So forgive me. When Bellamy announced that the new album was called
The Resistance, that the first song released was called United States of Eurasia, that he was experimenting with a symphonic arrangement that would take up a chunk of the album…yes, I was a little skeptical. And yet, even with all that (yes, even with United States of…oh hey Queen, didn’t see you there), I actually like this album. Yes, it does have its flaws. Yes, there are points when I want to scream at the band to play their damn instruments more. There are parts where I don’t know what the hell they were thinking (Guiding Light, I’m looking at you). But…there are gems here. Undisclosed Desires, even without a drummer or a guitarist, is surprisingly good. The Exogenesis trio of songs are also great, I just wish Bellamy had devoted more than 12 minutes to them. Bellamy’s vocals throughout the album are great as always.
Overall I still do have several issues with this album, but I’m going to sneak it in at #10 here because it is still growing on me with each listen.