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When The Resistance came out I started to write a review in an attempt to capture my first impression. Naturally I failed. Because I just can't ever get stuff finished. Now it's been a year since the release (in Germany we got the album 3 days earlier :oP), which I think is a good time to post a review after all.
Actually the album wasn't the source for hearing the songs for the first time. For one song it was the Ununited States of Eurasia treasure hunt, for another one the first single, for 3 others it was the Teignmouth gigs and I then got to see those myself at the soopersekrit concert in Berlin, and the next day we knew the rest of the album because it leaked. And only 3 days later was the album's release here. And by 'here' I mean Germany.
When I first listened to the leak it felt a bit short because I already knew 5 songs. And I learned that hearing songs live before hearing the album version will automatically make you feel disappointed with the album because obviously live just feels better.
Aaaaaanyway:
1. Uprising
The preview clip's beginning at a good part: some proper guitar. Had the song had more of it, I would have liked it more. Uprising is lacking something and that's proper riffage. For me it doesn't start to get interesting until 4 minutes in! Which is where the proper guitar part happens. The riff outro that they are doing live (if the gig's not part of the Resistance Tour) should have been on the album version, too. Dammit!
The Doctor Who synths were nice at first, but then I stopped noticing them. I think I even really forgot about them at one point.
Also, for the sake of completeness: this song is a dark blue. That probably comes from the title's first letter.
2. Resistance
With a title like that people probably expected something like Unnatural Selection turned out to be. But the 30 seconds preview clip sounded different and everyone feared the worst (yeah, while memetastic it could be wrong, could be wrong isn't the best part for introducing you to this song). But then it turned out to be pretty good.
Oooh, that intro. That chorus is deliciously powerful. I mean the part that contains love is our resistance and hooooold meee (mmm), not the it could be wrong, could be wrong part, which possibly could be called a chorus too, I don't know. Nothing against the it could be wrong, could be wrong part, though, I can sing along to the part without getting it wrong :oD. Which is quite an achievement for me because generally tend to I mix up what part comes when.
This song is sort of pinkish, purplish. It's a nice color, kind of similar to Glorious. And it doesn't come from the title, I think it comes from the song itself, from the vision I get from it.
3. Undisclosed Desires
First there was the preview clip and I was mostly WTF. Then there was hearing it live (OMGWTFKEYTAR) and that great atmospheric intro, which sadly is live version only.
The song is okay, but if it were to be erased from existence I wouldn't mind too much. I do like the plucked strings, though. I think I liked them since I heard them in the preview clip. Yeah, they were the best thing in this song's preview (doesn't sound like much of an achievement). Okay, wait, wait! I have proper nice things to say about this song: I like the music when the chorus starts (especially the last one), that's a great moment. -Oh god, *cringe* I have the song playing right now and oh god, the whispers *cringe*. I hate those, forgot about them too. Took me a while to notice them and later every time I listened to the song it turned into a cringefest until I finally stopped noticing these whispers. Okay, where was I? Ah yes, nice things. I like the instrumental version! Dammit, they should have put the instrumental version on the album. At the same time when the plucked strings play there are some other strings, I like those too. And at the seconds chorus (starting at the 1:56) there are those delicious vibrating synth sounds.
This song is also kind of purplish, similar to Resistance, but less pinkish. Also a bit of green and white (heh, that color combo reminds me of the My Little Pony I had as a kid), which could be due to the songs visuals.
4. United States of Eurasia (+Collateral Damage)
Ah, that was when the joke was still funny. We got this song in 36-second parts and pretty much every part sounded different. At the beginning my favorite part was the one that starts at 1:58, it sounds like it's building up to a climax - which it does, but it's a silly one. The song was kind of all over the place and WTF, but okay. If Muse want to prove those wrong who had the weird idea that Muse were taking themselves too seriously, okay. Be silly, it's only one song - except it wasn't. So yeah, USoE was accepted. We could make memes from it, have fun with it. Dammit, I love those SIA!s, I love waving my little Eurasia flag at the gigs.
This song is kind of yellow, orange.
5. Guiding Light
And this is where the joke stopped being funny. Hey, I mean, great when you're having fun in the studio, but seriously? SERIOUSLY? The preview clip sounded bad, but there was still hope, can't judge a song by 30 seconds and all that. All hopes were brutally crushed when I listened to the leak. Diary excerpt: "WTF @ Guiding Light". Yeah, sounds like Vienna, hilarious -_-. Dude, everyone and their dog are doing the 80s revival, did you really have to join them? Shit, it was so 80s, I thought it should totally be used it on Ashes to Ashes. Oh and that's where it actually did gets funny: when I rewatched the first episode of Ashes to Ashes I noticed that Vienna wasn't just anywhere in the show but the very first song that was played. So yeah, with a little detour I found something funny about this song. If only I could find the song itself funny in a good way.
And this is where the color comes in. This is where I actually have to say something more than just the color (before I mentioned them for completeness, because I was going to mention the color here): This song has the same color as the number 26, a kind of blueish light purple. And this is why I keep thinking it's track 6.
6. Unnatural Selection
Oh, this preview clip was promising, I had high hopes for this song.
It was first played on the Friday Teignmouth gig, and on Saturday when I saw a video of it, it felt bit flat. I kept listening to it and liked it more every time. Riffage, fuck yes! Finally a proper fucking rock song on this album! So I had fallen in love with the song on that Saturday, learned a bit of the lyrics that boardies had deciphered (hee, "I'm hungry for some onions") on Sunday and got to hear it live myself on Monday. Oh! My! God! YES! Instantly became the third song of my all time Muse faves.
And I keep thinking this is track 7, because the color of this song is dark blue, like 7.
7. MK Ultra
This was the other song I had high hopes for. And man, did I jizz my pants when I first heard the whole song. It was love at first sight with the first 2 lines *drool*. O hai, 'resonate', don't think I've seen you since Bliss.
Very interesting song, don't think I've heard something like that before. "All of history deleted with one stroke" XD like most Musers I can't help thinking of how Matt once accidently deleted a whole directory. And the tweettweet tweettweet tweettweet tweettweettweet still amuses me.
This song's color is more a part of its identity than others'. It's red and a very dark blue. Kinda like forest fruit, which are an interesting mix too, just like MK Ultra.
Diary on the day of the first listen says "MK Ultra ♥♥♥!" and it's still true. And so my list of all time favorite Muse songs consists of 4 now.
8. I Belong to You (+ Mon Coeur S'ouvre A Ta Voix)
The preview clip was already majorly WTF and I was scared to hear the whole thing. Diary entry from first listen: "WTF @ Guiding Light and especially I Belong to You". I can even bear listening to Guiding Light, but I Belong to You I usually skip.
People said the piano at the beginning sounded like Maroon 5 to them, but I couldn't hear it. Maroon 5 don't do sucky piano like that. It sounds... I don't even know how to describe it... noobish? I don't know, it's just lame and my cat could play something better than that.
I wouldn't have recognized the French part as French at first, which is good, because I don't like French that much. "The French part"... sometimes I still pause to think about how weird that must sound when we're talking about it. That thing gives me the urge to yawn because of how Matt sings it. After I had listened to the song a bit I thought Matt's French seems good apart from the R and E. Wee ponds, tomato dressing!
The crack! For serious, it's painful (the only thing I like is the plop, which really isn't enough to make me like the song)! I mean, come on, if you wanna do silly, why not - just don't do it at the expense of the music! I know it's possible! Worked brilliantly for Knights of Cydonia!
9. Exogenesis: Symphony Part 1 (Overture)
Soooo... Exogenesis. What can I say. It was doomed from the beginning. Okay, it's not as bad as I make it sound, but yeah, expectations were too high. I knew that even before I heard it. Everyone who had heard it thought it was awesome and I tried not to listen to them. But how can I not expect Exo to be great when it's described as soundtrack music? I love soundtracks. And that's the problem, I've heard lots of awesome soundtracks. So when I heard Exogenesis for the first time I was underwhelmed :o/. Okay, it's not bad, but it's not that awesome either.
On the plus side: Overture's lyrics are a bit memetastic. ^^
All of Exogenesis is green. I think there's a weird thing with the e, which is red, but seems to have the ability to make its surrounding letters green. Due to Overture's visuals the visions I get from this song have changed. I think those visuals made me like the song more.
Does that sound as if I don't like Exogenesis? Because that's not true. It just took me some time to get over that initial disappointment. Dammit, Exo in full would be so awesome. Remember when we still had hopes for that at Wembley?
I like Overture's space floatiness. I love me some Muse songs sounding like floating in space :oD. I also like that the visuals for Overture show floating. What I don't like is that silly UFO with the acrobat. I'll see your UFO & alien and raise you a pwoper alien invasion. XD
10. Exogenesis: Symphony Part 2 (Cross-Pollination)
Title-wise this was my favorite part of Exogenesis, as a song it's my least favorite Exo part, though. It's still prettiful, but Overture and Redemption are just better.
I like the story it tells. Mostly the vision I get is that of the story, but "wade through toxic clouds" reminds of me of the Doctor at the end of Doctor Who 4x04. ^^
I can't stand the guitar at "tell us your final wish". Boo-urns.
11. Exogenesis: Symphony Part 3 (Redemption)
Ah, Redemption, it reminds me of one of my favorite Doctor Who soundtrack pieces: Doomsday. At first it's sad (but less doom than Doomsday) and sounds like the rain just stopped, the clouds are dispersing and it gets better, you can hear hope. ...Dammit, I'd love to get a Doctor/Rose video made with Redemption. At first it's Ten/Rose and when the singing starts it should be 10.5/Rose.
The story of Exogenesis reminds me of Battlestar Galactica. All this has happened before, and all this will happen again.
Have I mentioned that Redemption is my favorite part of Exogenesis? And my favorite part of Redemption is "and we'll be good". It just sounds so desperate, so "We promise! Let us try! Let us prove it!" to me.
conclusion
My least favorite Muse album, it's all over the place and the first album to contain a song that I properly dislike. Even two songs! That's just not right.
I guess selfproducing for the first time is to blame for the album being all over the place. Hm, reminds me of Rob Thomas's first solo album. The second was much more coherent, so maybe there's hope for Muse's next album. If they scale down the cracktasticness.
It amuses me that Knights of Cydonia, that cracktastic song, is the last song of the previous album and kind of shows where The Resistance goes. From that point of view it's a good transition. From another point of view it's clear that KoC's crack is much higher quality than TR's. Seriously, what the fuck? Damn those people who thought Muse take themselves too seriously. Damn you, Muse, for feeling the need to prove those people wrong. Damn you for doing it the way you did. Your crack is bad. Just because it's a joke, doesn't mean it's funny. Hey, I mean awesome that you had fun in the studio, but that doesn't mean you have to produce bad crack! If you wanna do silly, do it right.
Actually the album wasn't the source for hearing the songs for the first time. For one song it was the Ununited States of Eurasia treasure hunt, for another one the first single, for 3 others it was the Teignmouth gigs and I then got to see those myself at the soopersekrit concert in Berlin, and the next day we knew the rest of the album because it leaked. And only 3 days later was the album's release here. And by 'here' I mean Germany.
When I first listened to the leak it felt a bit short because I already knew 5 songs. And I learned that hearing songs live before hearing the album version will automatically make you feel disappointed with the album because obviously live just feels better.
Aaaaaanyway:
1. Uprising
The preview clip's beginning at a good part: some proper guitar. Had the song had more of it, I would have liked it more. Uprising is lacking something and that's proper riffage. For me it doesn't start to get interesting until 4 minutes in! Which is where the proper guitar part happens. The riff outro that they are doing live (if the gig's not part of the Resistance Tour) should have been on the album version, too. Dammit!
The Doctor Who synths were nice at first, but then I stopped noticing them. I think I even really forgot about them at one point.
Also, for the sake of completeness: this song is a dark blue. That probably comes from the title's first letter.
2. Resistance
With a title like that people probably expected something like Unnatural Selection turned out to be. But the 30 seconds preview clip sounded different and everyone feared the worst (yeah, while memetastic it could be wrong, could be wrong isn't the best part for introducing you to this song). But then it turned out to be pretty good.
Oooh, that intro. That chorus is deliciously powerful. I mean the part that contains love is our resistance and hooooold meee (mmm), not the it could be wrong, could be wrong part, which possibly could be called a chorus too, I don't know. Nothing against the it could be wrong, could be wrong part, though, I can sing along to the part without getting it wrong :oD. Which is quite an achievement for me because generally tend to I mix up what part comes when.
This song is sort of pinkish, purplish. It's a nice color, kind of similar to Glorious. And it doesn't come from the title, I think it comes from the song itself, from the vision I get from it.
3. Undisclosed Desires
First there was the preview clip and I was mostly WTF. Then there was hearing it live (OMGWTFKEYTAR) and that great atmospheric intro, which sadly is live version only.
The song is okay, but if it were to be erased from existence I wouldn't mind too much. I do like the plucked strings, though. I think I liked them since I heard them in the preview clip. Yeah, they were the best thing in this song's preview (doesn't sound like much of an achievement). Okay, wait, wait! I have proper nice things to say about this song: I like the music when the chorus starts (especially the last one), that's a great moment. -Oh god, *cringe* I have the song playing right now and oh god, the whispers *cringe*. I hate those, forgot about them too. Took me a while to notice them and later every time I listened to the song it turned into a cringefest until I finally stopped noticing these whispers. Okay, where was I? Ah yes, nice things. I like the instrumental version! Dammit, they should have put the instrumental version on the album. At the same time when the plucked strings play there are some other strings, I like those too. And at the seconds chorus (starting at the 1:56) there are those delicious vibrating synth sounds.
This song is also kind of purplish, similar to Resistance, but less pinkish. Also a bit of green and white (heh, that color combo reminds me of the My Little Pony I had as a kid), which could be due to the songs visuals.
4. United States of Eurasia (+Collateral Damage)
Ah, that was when the joke was still funny. We got this song in 36-second parts and pretty much every part sounded different. At the beginning my favorite part was the one that starts at 1:58, it sounds like it's building up to a climax - which it does, but it's a silly one. The song was kind of all over the place and WTF, but okay. If Muse want to prove those wrong who had the weird idea that Muse were taking themselves too seriously, okay. Be silly, it's only one song - except it wasn't. So yeah, USoE was accepted. We could make memes from it, have fun with it. Dammit, I love those SIA!s, I love waving my little Eurasia flag at the gigs.
This song is kind of yellow, orange.
5. Guiding Light
And this is where the joke stopped being funny. Hey, I mean, great when you're having fun in the studio, but seriously? SERIOUSLY? The preview clip sounded bad, but there was still hope, can't judge a song by 30 seconds and all that. All hopes were brutally crushed when I listened to the leak. Diary excerpt: "WTF @ Guiding Light". Yeah, sounds like Vienna, hilarious -_-. Dude, everyone and their dog are doing the 80s revival, did you really have to join them? Shit, it was so 80s, I thought it should totally be used it on Ashes to Ashes. Oh and that's where it actually did gets funny: when I rewatched the first episode of Ashes to Ashes I noticed that Vienna wasn't just anywhere in the show but the very first song that was played. So yeah, with a little detour I found something funny about this song. If only I could find the song itself funny in a good way.
And this is where the color comes in. This is where I actually have to say something more than just the color (before I mentioned them for completeness, because I was going to mention the color here): This song has the same color as the number 26, a kind of blueish light purple. And this is why I keep thinking it's track 6.
6. Unnatural Selection
Oh, this preview clip was promising, I had high hopes for this song.
It was first played on the Friday Teignmouth gig, and on Saturday when I saw a video of it, it felt bit flat. I kept listening to it and liked it more every time. Riffage, fuck yes! Finally a proper fucking rock song on this album! So I had fallen in love with the song on that Saturday, learned a bit of the lyrics that boardies had deciphered (hee, "I'm hungry for some onions") on Sunday and got to hear it live myself on Monday. Oh! My! God! YES! Instantly became the third song of my all time Muse faves.
And I keep thinking this is track 7, because the color of this song is dark blue, like 7.
7. MK Ultra
This was the other song I had high hopes for. And man, did I jizz my pants when I first heard the whole song. It was love at first sight with the first 2 lines *drool*. O hai, 'resonate', don't think I've seen you since Bliss.
Very interesting song, don't think I've heard something like that before. "All of history deleted with one stroke" XD like most Musers I can't help thinking of how Matt once accidently deleted a whole directory. And the tweettweet tweettweet tweettweet tweettweettweet still amuses me.
This song's color is more a part of its identity than others'. It's red and a very dark blue. Kinda like forest fruit, which are an interesting mix too, just like MK Ultra.
Diary on the day of the first listen says "MK Ultra ♥♥♥!" and it's still true. And so my list of all time favorite Muse songs consists of 4 now.
8. I Belong to You (+ Mon Coeur S'ouvre A Ta Voix)
The preview clip was already majorly WTF and I was scared to hear the whole thing. Diary entry from first listen: "WTF @ Guiding Light and especially I Belong to You". I can even bear listening to Guiding Light, but I Belong to You I usually skip.
People said the piano at the beginning sounded like Maroon 5 to them, but I couldn't hear it. Maroon 5 don't do sucky piano like that. It sounds... I don't even know how to describe it... noobish? I don't know, it's just lame and my cat could play something better than that.
I wouldn't have recognized the French part as French at first, which is good, because I don't like French that much. "The French part"... sometimes I still pause to think about how weird that must sound when we're talking about it. That thing gives me the urge to yawn because of how Matt sings it. After I had listened to the song a bit I thought Matt's French seems good apart from the R and E. Wee ponds, tomato dressing!
The crack! For serious, it's painful (the only thing I like is the plop, which really isn't enough to make me like the song)! I mean, come on, if you wanna do silly, why not - just don't do it at the expense of the music! I know it's possible! Worked brilliantly for Knights of Cydonia!
9. Exogenesis: Symphony Part 1 (Overture)
Soooo... Exogenesis. What can I say. It was doomed from the beginning. Okay, it's not as bad as I make it sound, but yeah, expectations were too high. I knew that even before I heard it. Everyone who had heard it thought it was awesome and I tried not to listen to them. But how can I not expect Exo to be great when it's described as soundtrack music? I love soundtracks. And that's the problem, I've heard lots of awesome soundtracks. So when I heard Exogenesis for the first time I was underwhelmed :o/. Okay, it's not bad, but it's not that awesome either.
On the plus side: Overture's lyrics are a bit memetastic. ^^
All of Exogenesis is green. I think there's a weird thing with the e, which is red, but seems to have the ability to make its surrounding letters green. Due to Overture's visuals the visions I get from this song have changed. I think those visuals made me like the song more.
Does that sound as if I don't like Exogenesis? Because that's not true. It just took me some time to get over that initial disappointment. Dammit, Exo in full would be so awesome. Remember when we still had hopes for that at Wembley?
I like Overture's space floatiness. I love me some Muse songs sounding like floating in space :oD. I also like that the visuals for Overture show floating. What I don't like is that silly UFO with the acrobat. I'll see your UFO & alien and raise you a pwoper alien invasion. XD
10. Exogenesis: Symphony Part 2 (Cross-Pollination)
Title-wise this was my favorite part of Exogenesis, as a song it's my least favorite Exo part, though. It's still prettiful, but Overture and Redemption are just better.
I like the story it tells. Mostly the vision I get is that of the story, but "wade through toxic clouds" reminds of me of the Doctor at the end of Doctor Who 4x04. ^^
I can't stand the guitar at "tell us your final wish". Boo-urns.
11. Exogenesis: Symphony Part 3 (Redemption)
Ah, Redemption, it reminds me of one of my favorite Doctor Who soundtrack pieces: Doomsday. At first it's sad (but less doom than Doomsday) and sounds like the rain just stopped, the clouds are dispersing and it gets better, you can hear hope. ...Dammit, I'd love to get a Doctor/Rose video made with Redemption. At first it's Ten/Rose and when the singing starts it should be 10.5/Rose.
The story of Exogenesis reminds me of Battlestar Galactica. All this has happened before, and all this will happen again.
Have I mentioned that Redemption is my favorite part of Exogenesis? And my favorite part of Redemption is "and we'll be good". It just sounds so desperate, so "We promise! Let us try! Let us prove it!" to me.
conclusion
My least favorite Muse album, it's all over the place and the first album to contain a song that I properly dislike. Even two songs! That's just not right.
I guess selfproducing for the first time is to blame for the album being all over the place. Hm, reminds me of Rob Thomas's first solo album. The second was much more coherent, so maybe there's hope for Muse's next album. If they scale down the cracktasticness.
It amuses me that Knights of Cydonia, that cracktastic song, is the last song of the previous album and kind of shows where The Resistance goes. From that point of view it's a good transition. From another point of view it's clear that KoC's crack is much higher quality than TR's. Seriously, what the fuck? Damn those people who thought Muse take themselves too seriously. Damn you, Muse, for feeling the need to prove those people wrong. Damn you for doing it the way you did. Your crack is bad. Just because it's a joke, doesn't mean it's funny. Hey, I mean awesome that you had fun in the studio, but that doesn't mean you have to produce bad crack! If you wanna do silly, do it right.
Where I am: London
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