"Origin of Symmetry" Muse (Mushroom) review by Ruth

The name 'Origin Of Symmetry' comes from series of books Bellamy was reading at the time about the dimensional theory of reality, and the proposal of a ninth dimension that illustrates the essential symmetry of the universe. Muse's new album is a no less ambitious. An intense marriage of classical structure, and heavy rock assault, Muse have created an album that can subtly invade your heart and mind, before blasting them away with music that can punch holes through ten foot steel doors.

Muse's grandiose musical vision and their penchant for Bohemian Rhapsody-esque mid-song about face has led to some critics labelling them the new Queen. However Muse are like classical music in the way in the way Queen are not - where bands both wilfully embrace the glamour and glitter, and at times by default the pomp, of the most popular classical oeuvres, this is also where the comparison ends.

While the glint in Matthew Bellamy's eyes is the light of showbiz, it's not just focussed on the mere richness of music fit for the courts of kings. This is not merely a background for celebrity. Muse's intentions are far darker than that. 'Origin...' invades the depths of disenchantment, the coldest and most desperate reaches of your heart, and elevates them to the stars. It has more the feel of a composer's final works than a young band's second album; where Queen are 'Music for The Royal Fireworks', Muse are Mozart's 'Requiem'. Or perhaps more fittingly, Holst's 'The Planets'.

But this Queen comparison is something of a double-edged sword. While Freddie Mercury and co. enjoyed worldwide acclaim for their music, it's fair to say that they weren't always taken seriously. Even their recent resurgence in their popularity was grounded in a scene from comedy Wayne's World, where the film's characters mime along to Bohemian Rhapsody.

And here we start to enter the world of Spinal Tap. Two of the film most hilarious moments hinge on scenes where the band's grand vision is compromised by a singular moment of silliness - 'Stonehenge', anyone? And as Muse undertake their grand magnum opus, there always seems to be something to undermine the seriousness of it all. Take for example 'Screenager', a sharp chilling observance on self-mutilation, and one of the songs greatly discussed in recent interviews... because one of the percussion effects was created using the zip on Bellamy's trousers. Or the over-the-top, Anvil Chorus meets Russian Requiem of 'Megalomania', with it's Eastern European sleaze woodwind and thundering organ. Or the moment in Micro-Cuts, where Matt Bellamy's voice has reached a point where it's so excessively operatic, you'd be forgiven for thinking that he's just taking the piss.

Perhaps this is just a clever move on Muse's part, to not have their lyrical sentiment taken too seriously. Not long ago, certain members of other emotive bands accused them of miserabalism, and Muse's candid and often tongue-in-cheek approach to interviews has led to many a journalist being led up the garden path. Add to this the fact that Muse's audience is of a much younger persuasion in general, almost intentionally so, and the number of quite shockingly obsessive fans they manage to pick up in the wake of their debut album. Muse are not a band who like to do anything in half-measures, and the resonance with which 'Showbiz' hit their fans has inspired a loyalty that they won't easily shake off, making them perhaps all to aware of the scrutiny they are under, and the responsibility that means....

But is the same true as far as the music is concerned? After all, Matthew Bellamy has stated that while they don't take themselves too seriously onstage, the music itself is no laughing matter. But those new to Muse may take this album a little bit differently. Given the so-called pretentious stage manner of Bellamy, it's not difficult to imagine those yet to be convinced taking the apocalyptic, close encounters ending of Space Dementia as a 'Jazz Odyssey'-style indulgence in the limits to which a 3-piece band in a studio can get away with the most incredibly amazing sci-fi movie soundtrack imaginable. Others will simply find the epic nature of the album too demanding to listen to everyday, and may plump instead for something much more radio-friendly, or result to the old skip-between-singles trick.

Muse walk a fine line between sanity and madness, and where they manage to keep the balance, they truly are genius. There's the gorgeous pure crystalline intro to 'Bliss', their next single and surefire hit of possessive jealousy and love, and the haunting jungle rhythm of 'Screenager'. There's the sand samba of old live favourite 'Darkshines', a potential future single, a concession to those who miss the latin tinges of the last album. There's the moments of sublime choral harmony in 'Megalomania', and when 'Space Dementia' catches your mind unawares in a full-on explosion of alien spaceships landing, close encounters-style images, apocalyptic, world-ending, cities crumbling and shooting stars and exploding planets and... excuse me, I've just come. Having said that, there is one track which feels somewhat out of place here - their popular rendition of 'Feeling Good', the song Nina Simone made all her own. While the rest of the tracks hold up a mirror to the human soul, 'Feeling Good', despite it's minor flow, speaks of freedom and liberation of the soul. And while OOS comes from the darkest shadows of your heart, it's aiming for the skies.

Many fans have voiced a preference for the first album over the second. While Showbiz echoed the gutteral eviscera of Cobain et al, spiced up by the influence of American rock and Bellamy's Spanish guitar background, 'Origin...' incorporates yet more of Bellamy's piano skill, so crudely tossed away in past live gigs in favour of guitar, as well as taking the sheer scale of classical works and turning the amps up to eleven. But where the riffs sang last time, they are now punchier, harder, more raucous... hell, they virtually scream in agony at times in Bellamy's unruly hands. Let's not forget that those metallic grinding chord progressions of first 'Origin' single 'Plug In Baby' could've come straight out of the pages of Rachmaninov.

However, this new album has the scent of something missing from 'Showbiz', namely a sense of freedom and confidence. While Showbiz was a hint of Muse's potentiality, musical skill, Spanish flair and a dash of panache, in comparison to its matured brother, it smells rather too much of a band green to a major recording studio. The competent hand of John Leckie, and their prodigious youth coloured early opinions of a band very much in development, and did little to quell the copyist rumours either. While shades of OOS are present in the sweeping statements of 'Hate this and I'll love you' or 'Cave', it's not hard to imagine, especially considering the lyrical immaturity, that were 'Showbiz' to be recorded today, it would appear on the shelves a very different beast.

Some may lament the passing of Muse as a more immediate rock band. But OOS is the sound of a band spreading their wings, growing out of their shell. Where once they had flair, they now have the panache of Cyrano de Bergerac. The band who used to stand statically onstage and occasionally mumble something about an album now throw themselves at drumkits and treat their instruments like they have been very, very naughty boys indeed. And where their music once sparkled, it now shimmers and vibrates with passion. Tellingly, Matt Bellamy notes that the climax of 'Space Dementia' hits both the highest and the lowest tonal capacities of average speakers, making them do *very strange things* if you turn the volume up to it's full capacity. If that's what this album can do to speakers, imagine what it's doing to your brain... Last year, Mathew Bellamy described in now defunct music mag Select some of the more unusual characters that Muse have encountered so far on their exhaustive tours. One in particular stood out: "We've go this old bloke with a walking stick who's very strange, very posh," recalled Bellamy. "He's never heard rock music before and he thinks we're modern classical music." At the time it may well have been dismissed as the eccentricities of an old man, but it seems now more than ever that Muse are mutating into something more than most of us could ever have imagined...

5/5