This feels cut from the same cloth as the just-reviewed Coldplay album: early aughts albums that use carefully-produced, slightly overlong songs to evoke big feelings, all through a sound that reminds you more than a little of Radiohead.
But where Coldplay reaches for the ether, Muse goes for the truncheon, sapping you into submission by a thousand hammering blows, relentlessly pummeling you with texture, riff, climax and howl. The result is the same, your ultimate submission to the greatness of the band, but Muse makes it a lot more fun along the way, sending your careening down endless alleys of swerves, buzzes shreiks and guitarist aungularism. The maximalism is exhausting, and this album would have been far better at 10 songs instead of 14, but you've got to admire the little moves along the way, the savage buzz of Time is Running Out, the frantic gallop of Hysteria, the metal lurches of The Small Print.
If I've gotta be dragged down, I'd rather go down fighting for my life 3.5/5
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