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Clunge

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Posts posted by Clunge

    Album Eight: Simulation Theory

    in Songs & Releases

    Posted

    Revisited the whole album tonight for the first time for a good few months and I was quite surprised by quite a few things.

    First and foremost, I enjoyed album as a whole far more than I recall having done a while ago. Even the tracks I previously really have struggled to stomach like Thought Contagion and Dig Down (note: I still think TC is pretty damn horrible for a whole bunch of reasons).

    Instead though, it was songs like Something Human and Get Up And Fight that really stood out for me - Something Human in particular, especially the acoustic version, is a really sweet song. GUAF meanwhile is just fine. Absolutely fine. I don't think I'll ever truly warm to those saccharine yelps in the intro and post-choruses but the song itself is sound.

    I find Pressure a touch dull, and the marching band version is absolutely vile. I can't stress just how much I hate the additional focus on the brass and that piped crowd noise. Just the worst.

    I stand by the alt version of Algorithm being vastly inferior to the album version, although that said, it's really not that strong a song - I like it, but it definitely suffered from the hype machine like Supremacy did. It really couldn't ever live up to the song I built it up to be in my head.

    Dig Down is a funny bugger. I genuinely do really like the gospel version, but tonight, I definitely didn't grimace at the straight up album version. It washed over me rather than irritating me. I can't say whether that's good or bad.

    The Dark Side grows and grows and grows on me, and the alt version is the pick of the alternative versions for me - the HCM treatment works a charm. I love both versions of Propaganda, but the aspects of the song emphasised in the acoustic version I think I prefer overall. I just love how ridiculous the album version is.

    Break It To Me is immense, album and remix. Blockades remains completely forgettable, and The Void - argh, it's odd. I should love it, but it leaves me cold. The second verse starting 1:08 is masterful in the same way the second verse of The Handler is brilliant, just one of those passages where they threw everything at it and it works. But I do now find the end quite dissatisfying. The break at 3:17 kills the flow and then just when it sounds like they might just save it, those piano tinkles at 3:30 build to nothing and the song peters out completely. It's a dud ending when it could have been so much for. It ends up sounding like they couldn't be arsed to finish it off properly. It's that difference between the studio version of Take A Bow, with the fade, and the live version with the BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM finale. The piano version addresses some of the issues it must be said, although I'd rather have a full piano version along the lines of the acoustic version with a full band backing in the style of Ruled By Secrecy or Hoodoo.

    Bleh. It's another bag of all sorts. Just like the last three or four albums, some of it is absolutely exceptional, bits of it feel half arsed or just plainly half finished, some passages sound like experimentation / variety purely for the sake of it rather than having been done with any artistic merit or thought, and some bits are just downright offensive to the ear.

    I would just say though that NONE of it gets even remotely close to any of the high points on Drones. Dead Inside remains one of my all-time favourite Muse songs and easily their most successful foray into any kind of electronic-rock-pop crossover (well, apart from Map), while The Handler and Reapers still stand out proud.

    February 2019 Guitar World interview with Matt

    in Muse In the Media

    Posted

    That's perhaps the most self-aware thing Matt's come up with in the past 15 years - and I get it, I really do. Even if the past FIVE Muse albums have deviated further and further from the band I loved in 2001-2005. Hey ho. I'm pretty sanguine about it these days - every album delivers 3/4 more songs I love, and ST is no different really.

    • Like 2

    Simulation Theory tour discussion

    in Tours

    Posted

    So this set, how can we fix it? This is how with minimal changes:

    Algorithm (Alt. Reality)

    [Drill Sergeant] + Psycho

    Pressure

    Break It To Me

    Uprising

    Propaganda

    Plug In Baby

    [Pray]

    The Dark Side

    Supermassive Black Hole

    Interlude + Hysteria

    Map Of The Problematique

    Dig Down (Gospel)

    [Interstitial]

    [Houston Jam]

    Dead Inside

    Starlight

    Time Is Running Out

    Bliss (Ext.)

    Take A Bow / Knights Of Cydonia

    -----

    Algorithm

    Medley

    Knights Of Cydonia / Take A Bow

    It could definitely do with a few more songs so maybe split the medley out into three full songs (Dead Star / New Born / Stockholm / Assassin / Handler, etc) and do that as it's own encore with some riffs and then come back for Algorithm  and TaB/Knights.

    Worst Muse album

    in Songs & Releases

    Posted · Edited by Clunge

    For me, T2L absolutely defines 'forgettable'.

     

    Showbiz fizzes with juvenile ideas and experiments - the less successful ones are inherently memorable on account of them being the avenues Muse rejected. They were vital to shaping the band's sound.

     

    T2L merely emphasised experimentation for experimentation's sake is pisspoor. And that Muse excel when working within certain confines.

    Muse Christmas Present

    in Songs & Releases

    Posted

    Very nice.

     

    But wtf is up with the suddenly massively crunchy pre-chorus guitar chugs? They were inaudible at SBE and in the phone recordings. It feels like they massively amped them up in this mix and as a result, sound extremely incongruous.

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