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LP9: WOTP Discussion/Speculation Thread


Jobby

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  • 2 weeks later...

I'd really rather early 2021 than late. I'm graduating next spring and new Muse before I get out of college would be a fantastic way to go out, lol. But also waiting till the end of 2021 feels like forever away. I will say though, ST still feels very new to me. It's not the kind of record you go back and pick out loads of details you didn't hear the first few times, but it is the kind with plenty of songs I'd be happy to put on repeat. The alternate reality version also holds a lot of water and keeps the material interesting....now if they can just combine the successes of the two discs into one on the next record...

 

Actually now that I think about it, it reminds me of what the Foo Fighter's were doing in the late 00's. In Your Honor was half electric, half acoustic in a gamble to fully explore both sides of the band's sound. It had different songs on either disc but the idea was kind of similar to what Muse did with ST. Release two albums at once which ideally take the band in two different directions. The Foos followed that up with Echoes, Silence, Patience, and Grace, which I haven't listened to but I'm aware was an effort to then combine the acoustic and electric sides into a more dynamic whole. So that would be a nice idea for the next record maybe. Take the spaceyness and often stripped down quality of the second disc and combine it with the studio sheen and pop concision of the first for a more dynamic whole that meets somewhere in the middle. Not like it would be a new idea for Muse to combine disparate styles, lol.

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"Quarantine" sounds like it would make for a good mid-late album track, imo. I could also see Matt weaving themes of 'social distancing' into an album in a characteristically on the nose criticism of how technology has replaced real communication. I'll give Matt a little more credit than that, though. He's rarely THAT obvious!

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  • 4 weeks later...

(minor) INFO DROP :awesome:

Not working on the new album until 2021 apparently, so looks like my ‘late 2021’ release guess might even have been a bit optimistic. Matt’s gonna be spending most of this year working on Manson stuff and presumably with his new kiddo. 
 

Sound-wise, still not much but a potentially exciting little nugget is that he’s looking to explore with new guitar sounds and tech as a direction. So maybe moving back to a more guitar-based album as he suggested sometime before and like with Drones, though whether that means outright rock or not is still up in the air. In particular, he pointed out making a guitar with an onboard Whammy for weird pitch shifting effects, and y’all know I’m a sucker for that shit. Personally, I’d love it to be more in the vein of Map.

Edited by Jobby
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You‘re always quicker than me Jobby! But, I posted scans of the interview in the“ Muse in the media“ thread  😏

 

excited to hear about the guitar sounds-part, but I hoped that they‘d start working on the new album in autumn/winter this year..

Edited by Claudia O
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Don’t worry, I’ve been mastered the art of being an utter saddo and basically living my life around Muse for 11 years now 😅


What I find interesting though is that I feel like this is the first time they’ve left an album era without having any kind of definite avenue to follow for the next one. That, plus the shorter tour for ST and longer break for LP9, kinda makes me wonder if they’re coming to a point where they might take a real hiatus for a time after this one...

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20 minutes ago, Claudia O said:

I thought they‘d definitely do a lot of festivals this year .. I wonder if Global Citizen is still a thing .. I don‘t think so 😐

 

Yeah, I’m 90% sure that and RAH aren’t gonna happen now 😞 by the sounds of it, it’ll be 2021 before mass gatherings are allowed again

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3 hours ago, Bohemian-Cygnus-Running-Out said:

Very cool about the guitar bits though! Matt is my favorite guitarist of the century so far, so I'm always excited to hear what he has up his sleeve!

I liked reading about his setup more in depth and from the man himself as well but I’m not gonna lie, the part about needing a different distorted tone every couple of songs because people’ll get desensitised otherwise caused me to raise an eyebrow to say the least :’)

3 hours ago, Bohemian-Cygnus-Running-Out said:

Darn, I was hoping a new album would drop earlier next year, but maybe winter 2021 is still in play. I'm sure the pandemic must have set at least a couple gears back.

Nah, the more I think about it, I really think that’s a no go. At best, that might be when we get the first song. The time between when they first get together for an album and the final release is usually around a year or even just over, so even if they started as early as January, I couldn’t see them getting it out that quickly. Spring 2022 is my new bet, maybe early summer depending on when they start.

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On 5/2/2020 at 6:49 AM, Jobby said:

Nah, the more I think about it, I really think that’s a no go. At best, that might be when we get the first song. The time between when they first get together for an album and the final release is usually around a year or even just over, so even if they started as early as January, I couldn’t see them getting it out that quickly. Spring 2022 is my new bet, maybe early summer depending on when they start.

I know I've been the guy advocating for a longer hiatus for creative purposes but man this quarantine has me feeling pretty impatient and believing we're just over a year away from a new album was a little glimmer of hope. Still, hopefully this allows some breathing room for a creative spark! 
 

What are some new sounds/genres that everyone would like to hear on the next record?

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31 minutes ago, svenisms said:

What are some new sounds/genres that everyone would like to hear on the next record?

I mean...what’s left? :chuckle:

At this point, my approach is honestly just to go in with a totally open mind and no expectations. They’re proven me wrong too many times. If there’s anything left that I’ve been itching for, it’d be some weirder, experimental, not worried about sales or appeal but more restrained. I’m doubtful of that though, ‘cos they pretty much just did that with ST, only going for the typical bombast instead of restraint.

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There are mainly two directions I would really like them to go in at the moment:

1) exploring the style of BITM a lot further and developping it into a sort of breakbeat/industrial rock/lo-fi hip hop/psychedelic/whatthefuckknows whole album, or most part of it at least;

2) a whole piano-rock album in which they could bring back their early Romantique and symphonic influences but with the twist of integrating them into extremely heavy (with Chris' hyperdistorted bass and Dom's steady beats, I mean), hallucinating-sounding disco/dance-like tracks with proggish touches, sort of like Blockades.

 

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On 5/8/2020 at 5:02 PM, MartianSpaghettiRider said:

There are mainly two directions I would really like them to go in at the moment:

1) exploring the style of BITM a lot further and developping it into a sort of breakbeat/industrial rock/lo-fi hip hop/psychedelic/whatthefuckknows whole album, or most part of it at least;

I definitely like this. As much as I'm in the "more guitar" camp, I think they have a knack for pop as well. I think there are some interesting and new "dance rock" directions they could take this, whether it be lo-fi/shoegaze (a la Tame Impala) or a more hiphop influenced production style (a la Run The Jewels). IMO it would be cool to see them get an out of left field producer like Josh Homme or El-P.

Another idea I heard was to turn some of their D+B jams into songs, which could be cool. I would just prefer they be fleshed out a little more than Psycho was.  

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Sounds or genre hasn't been Muse's issue for the past decade; it's been quality of songwriting. Outrageous compositions and production has masked a massive gap in quality songwriting. If I cast my mind back to T2L, Drones and ST, the ONLY absolutely stellar, world class, quality bit of songwriting from that entire period – for me – is Dead Inside. I'd put that song alongside Plug In Baby, Hysteria and Map Of The Problematique as being a Muse song that will endure.

I relistened to T2L recently and frig me, it is dreadful. Really really really quite extraordinarily dreadful.

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TR - T2L was a rough patch but I think the last 2 albums have picked up a promising rhythm again. The Handler, Break It To Me and The Void could stand shoulder-to-shoulder amongst the top tracks from their best records imo. I’d say Algorithm too if it didn’t lean into the 80s retro gimmick just a smidge enough to feel distracting. Then surrounding those has been a bunch of very solid tracks like TC, Revolt, Defector, Propaganda, Dark Side and Reapers.
 

For me, they’re honestly not that far away from hitting a BH&R-level album on that trend, and that’s high praise from me. Dgmw, I don’t think they’ll do it ‘cos that was a real lightning in a bottle period for them creatively that’s so hard to capture twice but I’m okay with that. If they can keep putting out albums in and around the level juuuust below that, I’m more than happy. Definitely excited to see what a slightly longer break away could potentially result in.

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13 hours ago, Jobby said:

For me, they’re honestly not that far away from hitting a BH&R-level album on that trend.

I agree. While Drones is my least favorite of later-era Muse, Simulation Theory feels almost like a spiritual sequel to BH&R. I think if it had one or two additional stronger songs and maybe excluded a Dig Down or a GUAF it would have been a much stronger entry. It's a hard line to walk and I don't fault them for it.

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News, nEWS, NEWSS (and I know it isn’t strictly about the album but fuck it)

 

1 - no outright solo record or plans for Matt, but may do more stripped back, ethereal/dreamy stuff (doesn’t like ‘inflicting’ that on Dom/Chris which I kinda suspected tbf). Yes purlease

1.5 - talks about wanting to go back to their roots (again) for LP9, ‘totally resetting’ and ‘going back to square one’, even suggests moving back to Teignmouth. Potentially very exciting if he means something closer to Showbiz and pre-Showbiz rather than Drones

2 - unsure about live shows in 2021 but, if things seem back to normal, they’d be open to doing a show celebrating either OOM or just Origin (just Origin would be weird when they’ve already done that imo, but FUCK for the former)

3 - the Global Citizen gig was supposed to be in Berlin BUT....BUTBUTBUT

4 - this FUCKER has once again hinted at that secret ‘something at the Albert Hall’ by saying it’s something he’s not supposed to talk about. WHAT IS ITTTTTTT. Worth pointing out that he says both shows will still happen if they’re reorganised for next year, but that would seem to suggest that this Albert Hall show isn’t entirely in their hands?

Edited by Jobby
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6 minutes ago, Claudia O said:

Jobby, I just read an „interview“ in the online NME ...  have you read it too? Or have you watch the Zane Lowe interview ... and NME copy/pasted all these exciting news ! I haven‘t watched it yet ...

https://www.nme.com/music-interviews/muse-matt-bellamy-solo-new-album-origin-of-symmetry-2668645

Yep, that’s the interview this news is from. Think it’s a separate interview with NME, they don’t cite Zane at all.

Don’t think the Zane Lowe interview is fully out yet(?). I’ve seen the clips most people have but I think we’re supposed to be getting a full hour at some point. Hopefully some more juicy stuff comes from that!

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