THE RESISTANCE

"Good," I said, although I had my reservations. Could he understand my musical taste, which these days involves ordering more and more music online because what I want can't be found among stores such as the one he was working in?

But that had been the trend of late. Whenever I bought a new album this year at the record shop, I would always be told how good it was by the people behind the counter. And while, I haven't purchased anything from them this year that was really amazing yet, they've always told me that I had picked a good album. And so far, this year, I've bought almost exclusively prog or prog- related music from them. I suppose that they are music lovers, just like me, and that they recognise creativity in music. Perhaps they, too, shop for music primarily on the internet where the selection is vast, but know that among the music they sell, the likes of Dream Theater, The Mars Volta, Porcupine Tree, and Muse are more likely to lead listeners down the road of wanting that music.

With that in mind, I decided to take his words at face value, and listened to "The Resistance" with expectations of good music.

The first few tracks, from Uprising to Unnatural Selection, are great rocking tracks. Listening to them with the volume turned up, I can't help but move my body around to the catchiness in the music. Unfortunately, they have already, for the most part, faded in awesomeness over multiple listens, which is a bit of a disappointment.

One thing I'd like to point out is that in United States of Eurasia, Muse really manages to sound like Queen at points, mostly with the multi-part vocals. It is a nice, epic track, and one of my favorite of the first half.

As a further side note, I found the keyboards in Uprising sounded very familiar, as though they actually came from another Muse song. I was concerned that I'd be hearing a lot of echoes like that throughout the album, but thankfully that was the only place where I got that feeling.

I Belong To You is a bit of a quieter, more romantic piece that even have some french added in that is actually part of the opera Samson and Delilah. While it's not quite the same as writing their own classical-themed music, like many Prog rock acts do, you have to give Muse props for integrating opera into their music, and it works quite well. I must admit that this is one of my favorite tracks on the album so far and the one that has held up best over multiple listens (other than their epic, that is).

The gears really shift with Exogenesis, the 12+ minute epic at the end of the album. We are treated with some strongly classically-influenced music with a lot of piano and string instruments tossed in, and it is less based on the vocals than the rest of the album, more on the music. I really appreciate it. One part even reminded me a bit of "Rhapsody in Blue".

The way that Muse displays the track shows some of the difference in aesthetics between them and a "real" prog rock band; if a band such as Yes, Flower Kings, etc. had done this track, it would have been called: Exogensis Symphony: Overture/Cross-Pollination/Redemption.

This album doesn't quite bear up over multiple listens but it is a great combination of hard rocking material that really pumps you up in the front, and some more gentle, classical-oriented music at the end. Overall, a great 3 star album.

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