Origin Of Originality, more like (Origin Of Symmetry - Muse)

Member Name: WannaHobbit

Product:	Origin Of Symmetry - Muse
Date:	05/02/03 (119 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: The Lyrics (mainly Megalomania), The piano/guitar insanity (New Born, Space Dementia mainly), The ability to have a song knock on 7 minutes and not get dull (Space Dementia, Citizen Erased)

Disadvantages: Hyper Music is a bit bland, Um... 11 tracks is too short? Yeah, give us more :-D, Well now I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel. What are you, kidding? Fault this album at your peril.

Showbiz was dogged with Radiohead comparisons (and it's Radiohead comparisons above all other things that irritate me about music... Radiohead are good, but stop putting every band with a high pitched vocal and imaginative lyrics down to plaguerism), but was still a good album. Not much of it instantly stood out - even liveliest moment Cave took a listen or two with me - and even when it had, some of it, e.g. Escape and Sunburn, still seemed rather straightforward and dull.
Two years on, all the stops have been firmly pulled out, all Radiohead comparisons have been totally squashed (or should bloody be - anyone still ranting about Bellamy wanting to be Yorke is being narrowminded) and the result is one hell of an album. From the opening moments of New Born, as a sinister piano tune fades into a riproaring violent guitar, it's clear this is music that is going to be remembered. New Born is an instant classic, it has "Single" written all over it, and it's likely a V-sign to the anti-guitar harmony of Radiohead... it is musical originality, but not in quite the same way. The singles are only in places the simpler things on the album- though Plug In Baby is a straightforward, anthemic rocker, Bliss has some dizzying keyboard work, and Dark Shines' great guitar is complimented by a throat-ripping screaming chorus (and preceding piano-bashing, very stress-relieving no doubt!).
There's also endless dashes of wit throughout the album. The lyrics tend to have sci-fi slants (especially the titles) and the crazy sounding juxtoposition of stuff like the film noir piano solos and screeching weirdness of Space Dementia makes it all sound like there's something fresh happening here. Even the cover of Feeling Good, done in true Muse style, comes across as delightfully sinister, almost evil sounding, yet undeniably cool. Citizen Erased is rather like Space Dementia and New Born, in that it's both lengthy and goes through various w
ildly listenable stages. They could each, arguably, be compared to Radiohead's Paranoid Android - but that song was itself compared to Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody. So it seems everybody, even the blessed Radiohead, nick ideas from time to time. Lyrics tickle the brain, guitars threaten the ears, and Bellamy's operatic wail soothes both.
And the songs that aren't wildly staged, grandly operatic or of epic length are still great. Micro Cuts is Bellamy's loudest moment (sung live it's rather frightening), Screenager is a uniquely soothing little thing (soothing being at it's happiest moments, it is propelled by a sinister guitar tune) and Hyper Music, though bland in comparison to the songs either side of it, has great lyrics. I advise if you like it, you seek out the remake/B-Side, Hyper Chondriac Music.
And at the end, we have the song that took me longest to enjoy... Megalomania. Deliriously good lyrics ("...when I am gone, it won't be long before I disturb you in the dark..."), a hypnotic bassline and a freakish, grandly horrific church organ screeching behind Bellamy's typically outstanding vocals. It makes for the perfect end to the album.

So overall then. Matthew Bellamy's vocals put to shame Thom Yorke's grandest efforts even if just in terms of volume (Yorke's is a quietly confident mumble most of the time, Bellamy roars and wails unashamedly); The music itself is of a different style entirely to Radiohead (Radiohead have become "anti-guitar"... if Muse ape them at all, it's a version of the band that have come and gone) and is often heroic and operatic; The lyrics are top quality; and there's a running sinister theme, it's cynical, almost evil... and ever remarkable.
Easily superior to Showbiz, this is an absolutely outstanding album. A sure sign that Muse are going to be really, really big.

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