LP9: WOTP Discussion/Speculation Thread

[Tesseract]

Easily my favorite from the album so far. My expectations for this album have been fairly mild considering I've liked all of the songs we've heard from it, but as long as there's 1 or 2 other songs as good as (or nearly as good as) KOBK, I'll be happy. 

[Anticitizen1]

Agreed. Though they actually are playing this, whereas Assassin was a bit of a rarity.

[MUSEli]

25 minutes ago, Clunge said:

So it's out. It's basically Assassin Pt.2 really, isn't it?

KOBK's more like Stockholm Syndrome pt.2, but I dare to say that it's even better

[The Dying Atheist]

Well, definitely Kobk is my fav of the album so far, actually the only one that makes me really hyped…but I have to say I’d rather listen to the live version at Rock Am Ring than the official WotP version, because I feel Matt really throws all his anger in the lyrics better in that live debut.

Edited July 21, 2022 by The Dying Atheist

[Silentgod86]

I agree the studio version is oversaturated with layers. The synth tracks are overbearing and the weird volume shifts of the guitar track make an appearance again.

 

Folk should also check out the nova rocks version, it's very clean as the audience isn't miked.

[kueller]

I like it. The pre-chorus has a nice momentum and I'm glad the choruses on this album are moving away from the "repeat the name of the song a few times" thing they had going on in Simulation Theory (bar Compliance).

Does something almost sound live tracked here to anyone? At least the way Matt sings doing his little weird sounds that would normally just be on stage.

[Claudia O]

I like it, but still prefer the live version. Maybe cause we got it earlier and listened to it a couple of times? I‘ll wait for the CD to listen in better quality tough. Call me old-fashioned.. yes when it‘s about how to listen to music 😏 

This yayayayaaaaa is a bit weird, don‘t you think ? But it‘s very Muse. I wonder how „Live and let die“ influenced it, maybe only its title? 

[Silentgod86]

Question, are the drums programmed or are they live? Sounds a bit hollow to me?

[frutiger75]

4 hours ago, Claudia O said:

I like it, but still prefer the live version. Maybe cause we got it earlier and listened to it a couple of times? I‘ll wait for the CD to listen in better quality tough. Call me old-fashioned.. yes when it‘s about how to listen to music 😏 

This yayayayaaaaa is a bit weird, don‘t you think ? But it‘s very Muse. I wonder how „Live and let die“ influenced it, maybe only its title? 

i'm older school than that. i've not listened to anything/watched any videos, and won't until album release day. i just like reading commentary until then. sounding mostly negative, but that's reddit and discord for ya.

preordered my physical copy / bundle / what-have-you, and i'll probably just pass judgment after i buy FLAC files off qobuz on the day when i have the chance to listen to the album front to back, short as it may be, all in one fell swoop (and then watch live videos). i don't do these shenanigans for any other band, even though it's jumped the shark as far as i'm concerned. 😑

i have a ticket to a theatre gig in october, but i need to book a flight, and my main airline that i use just canceled like 90,000 flights today. i'll tackle that bear tomorrow.  

[Clunge]

Also, this is not Muse at their heaviest, whatever Matt says. The studio version is almost underwhelmingly unheavy.

[Timbo59]

Can someone share a link for the best audio quality live version of the song? The one I heard weeks ago wasn't great quality.

[CodeBreakerShyOutsider]

20 hours ago, Clunge said:

So it's out. It's basically Assassin Pt.2 really, isn't it?

Assassin + Reapers

[CodeBreakerShyOutsider]

16 hours ago, kueller said:

I like it. The pre-chorus has a nice momentum and I'm glad the choruses on this album are moving away from the "repeat the name of the song a few times" thing they had going on in Simulation Theory (bar Compliance).

Does something almost sound live tracked here to anyone? At least the way Matt sings doing his little weird sounds that would normally just be on stage.

I thought so too. Strong older Muse vibes with the final line.

[Doos]

22 hours ago, Claudia O said:

I like it, but still prefer the live version. Maybe cause we got it earlier and listened to it a couple of times? I‘ll wait for the CD to listen in better quality tough. Call me old-fashioned.. yes when it‘s about how to listen to music 😏 

This yayayayaaaaa is a bit weird, don‘t you think ? But it‘s very Muse. I wonder how „Live and let die“ influenced it, maybe only its title? 

I just realised what the yayaya bit reminds me of: Randy Marsh/Lorde (South Park) 😂

Still love this song though.

[kueller]

13 hours ago, Clunge said:

Also, this is not Muse at their heaviest, whatever Matt says. The studio version is almost underwhelmingly unheavy.

What would you say is their heaviest?

I'm still partial to the studio versions of Dead Star and Ashamed, since a lot of the heavier BH&R and Resistance are weaker on record.

Also even if I may not be too into all the songs I do think parts of Drones captured their live jamming sound pretty well.

[Clunge]

I suppose it depends if we're talking 'heaviest' in terms of sound/production, or 'heaviest' in terms of some of the concepts/tropes in the song. Matt seems to place himself in the latter camp going by the notes that came with KOBK (referring to it as metal, talking about growls, double bass pedals, etc). For me, I lean more towards the former in so much as KOBK is clearly nowhere near as 'heavy' as say Dead Star in its recorded form.

I maintain that Drones did an excellent job of capturing Muse's more live sound on record. Still think it's a great album, the first two-thirds of it at least.

[That Little Animal]

1 hour ago, Clunge said:

I suppose it depends if we're talking 'heaviest' in terms of sound/production, or 'heaviest' in terms of some of the concepts/tropes in the song. Matt seems to place himself in the latter camp going by the notes that came with KOBK (referring to it as metal, talking about growls, double bass pedals, etc). For me, I lean more towards the former in so much as KOBK is clearly nowhere near as 'heavy' as say Dead Star in its recorded form.

I maintain that Drones did an excellent job of capturing Muse's more live sound on record. Still think it's a great album, the first two-thirds of it at least.

Yeah, ‘heavy’ is a completely subjective term in this context. 

Muse’s staple arpeggiated synths from the past, weaved in at the right moment, managed to enhance their dirty three-piece riffing sound and beefed things up a bit by providing contrast with the gritty guitar and bass sound. Their current stacking of layers doesn’t manage to recreate that same feeling, because it gets too muffled and it just sort of kneads it all together, taking away from the ‘heaviness’ rather than emphasizing it through contrasting sounds. 

It’s like making your ‘freshest salad yet’ by adding pomegranate, feta and cucumber and then putting it in a blender. Doesn’t work that way. 

[Claudia O]

2 hours ago, That Little Animal said:

 

It’s like making your ‘freshest salad yet’ by adding pomegranate, feta and cucumber and then putting it in a blender. Doesn’t work that way. 

😂 great comparison ! 

[Anticitizen1]

On 7/22/2022 at 7:23 PM, Doos said:

I just realised what the yayaya bit reminds me of: Randy Marsh/Lorde (South Park) 😂

Still love this song though.

Can't unthink this now.🤣

Can't unthink this now.🤣 Wonder what the Lorde lyrics would be...

Mind you WOTP reminds me of the Rhubarb and Custard theme tune so I shouldn't complain about comparisons, really. 

Edited July 24, 2022 by Anticitizen1
Typo

[Hat]

On 7/21/2022 at 9:31 PM, Claudia O said:

I wonder how „Live and let die“ influenced it, maybe only its title? 

"Lyrically the song takes influence from my favourite Paul McCartney song “Live and Let Die”, a dark take on how life’s adversity can sometimes bring out the worst human instincts to survival at any costs."

[Timbo59]

Re-listened to all four singles now. I like them all. Was cold on WOTP at first but I can enjoy it now that I'm used to the 'willo the people' refrain. If the rest of the album is of similar quality to these four, it'll be my fav since T2L.

[frutiger75]

part of the "problem" is that the band plays songs so well live that come closer to studio recordings more than just about any other out there. 

i agree, on KOBK studio, the mids are too high, the bass isn't nearly heavy enough, and the vocals are too compressed. but these are probably matt-approved (and maybe dom-approved) stylistic choices. i can hear influences from every album they've released from showbiz to date...even ST at the end (it's probably a lead-in to the next track) -- and i think that's what they were aiming for with KOBK. or, at least the label wanted them to do so with at least one song.

oddly, my biggest gripe with KOBK studio is that there should have been a full half (or even quarter or eighth) rest of all music (i.e. complete silence) between Yah, Yah Yah Yah, Yahweh Yah Yahweh Yah Yah Yah, and the next Yah Yah Yah in the first part of the breakdown. but i'm really nitpicking here. silence can be golden.

i agree that the first half of drones probably does capture muse "live" in studio at its best -- alongside the dead star/IYW b-side release -- but at least this comes somewhere close (ish). there are a few others out there, but few and far between. but again, the issue is how well a band can replicate itself live when trying to mirror a studio recording with minimal backing tracks -- a hallmark of great bands. i remember the days when muse basically refused to use virtually any backing tracks (hence having to add morgan, and now dan) when more operatic stuff required the inclusion.

if i were an octopus and had toes and fingers on each extremity, i think that would cover most of the bands in history that can actually come close to pulling off live versions that approximate studio recordings, and muse is one of them.

[Clunge]

I much rather bands didn't attempt to capture the studio version/sound live – that's not why I go to gigs. The studio lets you do anything, layer it up with 80 different takes and embellishments, that's fine – that's the point of being in the studio, even more so these days when you can just add infinite tracks in ProTools and don't have to worry about bouncing things down like The Beatles did.

Live should then be about making that work live, not 100% faithfully recreating it. Pare it all back to the core components of the song. Get extra musicians in if you want / need, but the last thing I want are robotic recreations of studio versions. The perfect example being how Matt used to (perhaps still does) uses a backing track for the harmonics in the Stockholm Syndrome intro. It's just complete unnecessary. Same as when Chris used a backing track for the Time Is Running Out bassline (yes, I know he plays over the top of it, but he's since proved it wasn't necessary in the first place).

Also, Muse's songs really aren't all that complex or technical – either to actually play or recreate sonically. It's why I still find the rigidity of their sets quite irritating. Songs like Muscle Museum, Uno, Hyper Music, Dead Star, MK Ultra, The Handler, Reapers, etc, could easily be rotated in and out without issue is they thrashed them out in a rehearsal room on tour for an hour or so. Metallica manage this and their songs are infinitely more complex. Radiohead typically rehearse 60-70 songs per tour and rotate most of them. Pearl Jam's setlists are bananas. Pixies often manage 40 songs in a single set, more than Muse might rotate in four or five years. The Cure sometimes manage nearly that. Horses for courses perhaps, but Muse don't have a lot of excuses here.

[Dysfunco]

My biggest gripe personally (besides the slightly awkward "cut off" on the guitars on the verses) is the drum sound. It too loude and in-your-face to my taste, overly compressed and unnatural sounding.

Perhaps just lowering it slightly in volume would've been good  enough, though.

I guess the sound of the rums isn't too far away from, let's say, Reapers. But atleast they breathed a little more there; wasn't as undynamic and in the forefront, atleast to my ears.

A little more vocal reverb/echo on the choruses would have been welcome too. I think that could've evelated the overall impression.

Edited July 26, 2022 by Dysfunco

[Supero1726]

This album, for me, is definitely shaping up to be a more coherent version of the 2nd Law. I've loved all of the singles so far, even Will Of The People and Compliance. Everything I've heard really shows off Muse to the best of their ability. Obviously, the best part of this release schedule has been Kill or be Killed, hopping round my top 5 tracks already. I'm not complaining about the mixing issues, just glad the song exists!