thoughts on muse's absolution

muse is one of the many bands that adopted the vocal styles of the revered thom yorke and took it one way or another. in the eight or nine years since "the bends", this has been the way of it: a slew of "wish-i-was-radiohead" bands that end up being worth nothing and going nowhere new or interesting. muse is the exception to the rule. muse is actually the exception to a lot of rules.

the onslaught of kents and coldplays and muses came mostly after the release of ok computer and and tended to lean the music into the style of the bends meets ok computer. my first tendency is to be upset by all of this and sometimes i am. but the truth is that to say that no one should be able to write terse, plain novels like hemmingway or fluid stream of conciousness novels like joyce would be silly, so the difference becomes more than that. the difference is not where you start, but where you go from the starting line. where bands like coldplay have sunk themselves into the rut of mediocre radiohead rip-offs with nothing new to add, muse has taken on new ideas, things not covered by the radiohead catalogue (yes, there are things radiohead didn't try). myabe that's why i've always liked them. the first time i heard muse was just before "kid a" came out and a music nerd friend of mine handed it to me to borrow as a hold-me-over until the new, long awaited radiohead record came out. i was startled. the vocals were thom almost to a key, but the music was something else. the tone of the music was new. from the flaming single "sunburn" with it's frantic piano reminiscent of the way i like to imagine beethoven in particularly intense moments of presentation. overall, throughout their first record, there is something spacey and desperate that's lightened by a tone of hope that seems to cascade across the record. there's something james bond themesong-like about the record.

the record, "showbiz" released in 1999, marks a distinction only in the ending points, and a fantasy that radiohead has always been too tied down in their own maudlin nature to confront or express. i must have listened to "muscle museum', the record's second track at least a hundred times feeling it move beyond thought, beyond emotion into downright visual need: a need so clear that one can almost touch it before their face. mathew bellamy (vocalist) is falling apart the entire way through all of these tracks, but not in that depressed emo sort of way, more like a falling apart and onto your knees, a final seeing of the devine light that is what he needs, wants. it's not clear in every track if he is talking about a specific thing or just general emotions, but you feel it like it's yours anyway. what makes it magical is the way he manages to put you in touch with feelings that you can't relate to in a historical sense, but find solace in anyway. he bridges the gap between his personal experience and the experience of his listeners, making them feel like even though they have not lived his days and troubles, they have had a few that might just feel similar. and that's enough for most of us.

i kind of lost touch with muse on their second record, "origins of symmetry" despite it's wonderful title. at the time i was bogged down in a re-rootsing of the classics: neal young, the smiths, the cure, etc. but when "absolution" (their third and most recent record) came out, i was all ears.

at the time i had been trying to hammer out the last few parts of a story that was a little hard for me to tell (for personal reasons) and something about that record connected with me. the record is, as the title suggests, a kind of cleansing, an absolution not only for those who wronged you but for yourself. it is the sound of giving yourself permission to forgive yourself your errors and move on. it is the sound of growth. the first track that really locked me in was "falling away with you" with it's pretty little intro and it's almost lullaby-like quality of whispered truths. at least, truths for bellamy and really, in an art that is defined by it's personal nature, what more can you ask?

not that "falling away with you" is the only thing the record has to give, you'll find all-around solid musicianship and the same thralling, maddened approach to understanding on tracks like "blackout" in which bellamy swoons us with his soft serenade of "don't fool yourself, this love is too good to last and i'm too old to dream" and for a moment, we believe him. we believe him the way that we believe ourselves when that dark moment in any romantic life hits when you start wondering if you deserve the good luck your having, if it can possibily go on like that. the wisdom of it is that no, it can't, but that's okay, we'll just keep on doing the best we can. that's the feeling the song leaves behind with you for hours and hours after it has played.

the realism of it is that he follows his bellows of "this love can't last" with "don't fool yourself, this love could be the last." and i know what he means. there is nostalgia here to expereinces i have not had.

when i knew that i wanted to write something about muse and what it has and does mean to me, i knew that to begin or undertake an explanation of the band or the record ignoring the radiohead-ness to it would have been foolish, but what i think anyone who gives them a few serious listens will find is that they are not a clone of radiohead, but rather a child of radiohead: as hercules to zues, and let's face it, i still wouldn't want to piss of hercules in a dark alley (god or not).

2004-06-19 | 3:56 p.m.
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