BLACK HOLES AND REVELATIONS

I'm currently checking out a couple of modern (more or less) progressive bands like TMV (most experimental), Kayo Dot (most innovative), Riverside (most captivating) and now as well MUSE (most poppy or shall I say most rubbish?). Actually I'm aware of this highly RADIOHEAD-related band since right from their beginning and even watched them live already (just incredibly noisy and not really enjoyable). I liked to listen their debut back in 1999/2000 but this was happening during days I mostly listened to Alternative Rock. Meanwhile I discovered trillions of modern bands that are 1000x better than them I've to say. I could not say that there is that much improvement present here on their latest output compared to their debut or the follow-ups. I would even claim they're sounding worse here, a sort of mix between post-punk/emo, synthie pop and indie rock. There are hints to bands/artists like DEPECHE MODE, U 2 and PRINCE and probably many others I'm not aware of and actually even don't want to be. Two or three songs like "Take A Bow" and "City Of Delusion" are at least moderately enjoyable offering a very slight resemblance to metal prog at times. Many reviewers name "Knights of Cydonia" as a great song but I would call it just a rather good one nice for 1 or 2 spins before it starts becoming boring. Admittedly I listened only once to this album (not sure yet whether I should give it another spin), but honestly I don't think that more repeats are necessary for enabling me to rate this work. To be called as still good (just at the border and in the context of PROG RELATED) and possibly useful as a "Young people's guide to more advanced music"!

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