John Doe
CRITIC
依然范特西
Empire
I Am A Bird Now
Playing The Angel
The Warning
Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not
Black Holes & Revelations
It is often dangerous territory when an artiste names his/her latest effort after a classic album that had yielded fame for the artiste. Just earlier this year, Elton John attempted a sequel to his classic Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy with The Captain & the Kid. Not surpisingly perhaps, unlike the orginal which garnered almost universal praise, the follow-up was panned and praised in equal parts. John might have aspired to the standards of the landmark album but the results do not always measure up.
2006 now witnesses another attempt at sequel creation (at least by name) now that Jay Chou (周杰伦) has finally released his latest work, the ominously named 依然范特西. Well-versed fans of Chou would instantly recognise that this album was named after Chou's breakthrough effort, 范特西. To this pair of ears at least, since the heyday of 范, Chou has stagnated. 八度空间 was a largely disappointing album while叶惠美 and 七里香 had commendable individual tracks but didn't necessarily add up to satisfying, cohesive wholes. And admittedly, I had become so jaded by Chou's music by then that I forwent 十一月的萧邦.
依's opener, 夜的第七章, is something of a showpiece tune. Crammed with atomspheric swelling strings and swathed in melancholy, its melody is wickedly insidious in planting itself into the back of one's mind. Strangely, the song reminded me slightly of 以父知名 but therein lies the conundrum of Chou's output. While his albums/songs usually stick to a certain predictable form, when the songs work, they can work really well. 夜 is a perfect example of this.
I will concede to having a soft spot for the next song, 听妈妈的话 for its simplicity, both in terms of arrangement and content. Built around a simple but pretty piano refrain and paired with exceedingly earnest sentiments, I thought it was a rather lovely number. However, this is familiar territory for Chou who almost usually have a family-inspired song in each of his albums. Check out 爸，我回来了 and 爷爷泡的茶 for reference points. My verdict is exactly the same as 夜: When it works, it's exquisite...even though we've heard it before.
The most-hyped song on this album is of course, 千里之外, a novelty exercise that pairs the weedy vocals of Chou with the polished pitch-perfect delivery of Fei Yuqing (费玉清). How does this interesting (and probably bizarre) pairing pan out? Giving credit where it's due, the song does have an ace melody, a nice 中国风-infused arrangement and typical poetic 方文山 penned imagery. It certainly measures up to its designated "hit ballad of the album" status ala 简单爱 and 七里香. But the song does feel somewhat let down by the rather strained delivery of Chou, whose attempted mimicry (completed with laboured stabs at hitting the high notes) of Fei's crystal clear vocals only exposes what a limited vocalist he really is. No matter, this minor imperfection doesn't really reduce the song's obvious hit quotient.
Upon repeated spins of the album, I remain convinced that this album is bogged down by a rather pedestrian middle section that is Chou by numbers. 草本纲目 smacks of the typical Chou Chinese culture-influenced rap numbers that started with 双截棍 and continued with the likes of 龙拳 and 双刀. It's a filler and this is as much truth as indictment. The schmaltzy ballads 退后 and 心雨 do not escape this accusation either. 红模仿 and 迷迭香 do, however, offer new directions which Chou could explore, the lounge jazz of the latter being a distinct example.
依 ends with 菊花台, a slowburner that did not immediately strike me as great but 方文山's work here is exemplary as usual and there isn't much to nit-pick in truth. Could Chou's comparatively unemotive delivery be flawed? Yes and no. Chou is and probably, always will be a limited vocalist (unless one seriously digs mumbled raps and indecipherable crooning) and one could accuse him of not bringing the emotions across but the man seems to understand the underlying heart of a song. His decision to deliver the song straight here indicates a maturity that not every singer might possess. Consider if this song was to fall into the hands of David Tao (陶喆) or Lee Hom (王力宏), it will probably end up becoming nothing more than a showcase of indulgent R&B vocal showboating. Chou's restrained performance here is true, sincere and understands the mantra of less being more.
Listening to 范 and 依 side-by-side, it is clear that Chou has evolved beyond exaggerrated hip-hop drenched synthesised sounds that he was once so fond of. Chou has steadily learned to embrace other musical genres into his work. While he is still liable to produce disposable fluff like 草本纲目 and formlulaic ballads like 心雨, the moments when he hits the mark do somewhat make up for these missteps. As a standalone, 依 is naught but a passable effort. We can only hope that some of the signs here might point towards a greater maturity for this talented artiste.
7/10
The sum of a band's ambition is usually expressed in the shape of a predecessor that the band hopes to emulate. The name gives an indication of the band's direction and possibly how good it is or at least want to be. So, for instance, when a band aspires to be the new Beatles, you have to admire the goal which the band has set for itself. The Beatles are, after all, one of the greatest four-piece bands ever. The pop greats who popularised the two-guitars, bass and drum combo. Trouble brews when, well, the target that a band aims towards ain't that great in the first place.
Kasabian has, more or less, always aspired to be the new Oasis. Now, there is nothing wrong with proletarian populist rock and roll. The only problem is that Oasis was the creator of a vastly promising debut, a follow-up that only partially fulfilled that promise and numerous shite records that came after those. In effect, while Oasis might be a good band, it isn't a great one. If you only set yourself out to be adequate, what does it say yourself?
Unique to themselves, Kasabian appears to be the only band right now trying to revive 90s baggy. Its self-titled debut contained sounds borrowed from the Stone Roses, Happy Mondays and countless alumni of Madchester. Personally, I never had a problem with that (although innumerable critics seem to despise Kasabian for that - why?). Every band is derivative. What separates the wheat from the chaff are those who can take their influences and match its best stride for stride or transcend it, producing something better and/or different. Kasabian, true to the members' implied ambitions perhaps, never come close to this.
Empire, the band's sophomore album, begins with its title track. It is a song that aims for the stratospheric epic with booming beats and strident syncs wrapped around a half-decent chorus. In truth, it is not bad...the problem is...the album tumbles headlong downhill from here onwards.
Shoot The Runner marries Gary Glitter glam-rock bombast with syntheised beats and handclaps, but it has a melody that even tone-deaf people would be hard-pressed to appreciate. Sun Rise Time Flies so blatantly rips Primal Scream off their XTMNTR album that it is a wonder why Bob Gillespie does not sue. Indeed Gillespie should really sue for damages, Sun Rise Time Flies sounds like a reject from XTMNTR that would never have been released for fear of tarnishing Primals Scream's good name (not that the Scream didn't manage that on their own already). Much of what follows can, at best, be described as depressing.
Apnoea sounds like a diluted approximation of the Chemical Brothers-Noel Gallagher collaboration Setting Sun and Setting Sun wasn't even that good a song to start with so it is a wonder why they chose to copy it then. And everything else that comes after this song repeats the modus operandi...all syncs and beats fury without the tunes nor words to match. British Legion might offer a respite with its acoustic balladry, but when it comes to melodic hooks, it still doesn't have a leg to stand on. This is a comment that could possibly be applied to many of the eleven tracks housed in this record. How an album can get by with such tunelessness is quite astonishing.
Empire isn't a good album, not even close to it by a million miles. Yet Kasabian might possibly still shift truckloads of this record, but...maybe that is the sum of its ambition...to sell large quantities of unimaginative loutish booze rock. Oasis kinda did that, so why can't they? But be careful what you aim for because you don't know where you might end up. Where is Oasis now?
3.5/10
It has been said that beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears. And within the first strains of a piano and the quivering introduction of that voice in its opening song, Hope There's Someone, there are hints that such a form of beauty may exist in the work that is I Am A Bird Now. It is not a false hope. For by the end of this supremely moving album, it'd have been proven that Edgar Allen Poe was right. Beauty in its topmost form can, indeed, move sensitive souls to tears. And I Am A Bird Now is such exquisitely beautiful.
I Am A Bird Now is the second album by Antony & The Johnsons. A band that will not sound familiar to most mainstream listeners, but mark my words, should be taken note of. Readers, while I'd love to narrate and share with all of you, the background and journey of the remarkable and unique character that is Antony, I will spare these words to simply cut to the chase. Make no mistake, reading up and knowing about his background will surely enrich the experiencing of this record, no doubt. But if you are a discerning listener, you will not allow such minutiae to distract you from what's the real showstopper. Just listen to Antony's voice and delivery. Everything else can be superfluous.
So much has been said (and praised) about Antony and his vocals that further descriptions or accolades from me are unnecessary. Quivering, stockpiled with oodles of raw intensity and emotion, his is a unique vocal instrument that's male and female both at once. It's Nina Simone and Jimmy Scott rolled into an indescribable and amazing hybrid. Simply put, Antony is one of the most strikingly beautiful voices of our generation.
Having an amazing gift of a voice can only carry one so far. Shorn of a body of great songs and words around which the voice can wrap itself, such an extraordinary talent would still be squandered. It is thankful, hence, that this is not the case in I Am A Bird Now. There is nary a bad song on this album. The only song I couldn't get myself to appreciate was Free At Last, but that is attributable to the simple fact that I am not a fan of spoken word.
As forementioned, the album opens with Hope There's Someone, a song that expresses a morbid fear that "Hope there's someone who'll take care of me when I die", a sincere wish that "Hope there's someone who'll set my heart free. Nice to hold when I'm tired." It has got to be just about the most beautifully heartbreaking way to open an album. Elegiac verses from a heart that is sunk and broken, yet still hopeful. And sung by a voice in such emotive intensity that it is indisputable that the protangonist knows his way through such heartaches.
Hope There's Someone is a fine opening not merely because of its inherent quality, but also for the fact that it provides an inkling of what is to come. A cogent mix of pain, despair, fear, longing, hope and other emotions immersed in disparate tales about physical abuse and amputation, gender identity (or is it confusion?), needy love, freedom (of various kinds) and God. Beauty is a fragile gift.
Even in such redoubtable company, there are shining moments here that are worth highlighting. The ballad duet with Boy George, You Are My Sister, is towering for its performances and touching for its subject matter, sentiments and context. Imagine two grown men singing to each other "You are my sister and I love you. May all of your dreams come true". There is an acknowledgement of love, camaraderie and hope here that is transcendent, whether you agree with its topic or not. Similarly, For Today I Am a Boy holds the hope that "One day I'll grow up, I'll be a beautiful woman. One day I'll grow up, I'll be a beautiful girl. But for today I am a child, for today I am a boy." This is a song that dares the audience to look directly into the hopes and dreams of the man mouthing these words. It is a direct gateway to this man's deepest recesses of his soul and it is poetic.
Fistful of Love, another powerful song has such a gorgeous melody that you have to do a double take at its subject matter. "And I feel your fists and I know it's out of love. And I feel the whip and I know it's out of love. And I feel your burning eyes burning holes straight through my heart." A person who loves his/her lover so much that he/she is unable to tear himself/herself away from the other party no matter the violence and hurt inflicted upon him/her. The average person may not recognise the emotions at work here but for the people who do, this must surely be the song about their lives.
I Am A Bird Now sees various prominent artistes, like Rufus Wainwright, Lou Reed (a long-time fan of Antony), Boy George and Derendra Banhart, all come together to collaborate with the inimitable entity that is Antony, only to see each one of them comprehensively overshadowed by him. Meanwhile, the Johnsons provide able backing and arrangement for the tunes. Sparse, gentle and rarely drawing attention to themselves, it is the perfect complement to Antony's singing. After all, why try to distract from the best thing on this album? And this is, incontrovertibly, one of the best albums of recent times.
8.5/10
Somewhere along the way, after the release of industrial rockish Songs of Faith & Devotion in 1993, Depeche Mode or maybe just Martin Gore decided that DM would discard its ace, namely the band's supreme tunefulness and mature into a band that played subtlety as its main calling card. While the willingness of a band to evolve is surely a postive development, this move also seemed to mark the decline of Gore as a tunemeister for the output that DM put out after Songs could, at best, be described as mediocre.
1997's Ultra was about as underwhelming an DM offering as humanly possible. Sure, the band's new and improved production was informed by the latest technological clicks, swishes and effects but it looked and sounded suspiciously like the emperor's new clothes. The album, despite its updatedness, was devoid of tunes and laborious to sit through. 2001's release, Exciter, lowered the bar even further. Indeed, Exciter must surely be one of the worst misnomers in the history of music. Flatliner would have been a much more befitting title.
Hence, we now come to DM's latest release, Playing the Angel. Will this album restore DM's much battered reputation? Is it the comeback to form that so many critics have lauded it to be? I am mixed in my assessment of this. How good this album is really depends on which era of DM's output you are comparing with? Yes, Angel is DM's best album in a decade. No, it can barely compare with DM's golden years.
Opener A Pain That I'm Used To, begins with a wail of loud, distorted and heavily disorientating feedback that harks back to the Songs album...or so one thinks. Until the listener is soon plugged back into a slowburn of a melody that is, very much, in line with the band's current mode of understated tune construction. It's a fine, toe-tapping introduction by all means but greatness wouldn't beckon it for company.
John the Revelator then comes on, in uptempo Music For the Masses mood. Bombastic and aided by a swelling call-and-response chorus, John is the one track on this album coming closest to matching DM's golden era songs. It probably wouldn't look out of place anywhere on a pre-1993 DM LP. First single Precious, while lacking John's immediacy, is a steady grower that etches itself into one's consciousness. These two tracks are, surely, the highlights of an album that moves steadily without offering any surprises or delights.
Much has been made of David Gahan's contributions in this album, a first, if I'm not mistaken, for any DM effort. Gahan acquaints himself well, alongside Gore. His work here is largely indistinguishable from that of Gore's. This is not necessarily a bad thing, considering the calibre of Gore as a songwriter...but then again, Gore hasn't been good for quite a long while.
Sharp-eyed readers must, by now, have realised that I have lurched wildly from talking about the quality of individual tracks to a commentary about David Gahan's songs on the album. This must say something about the impression that the rest of the unmentioned songs had made on me that I've had to change subjects. For sure, the likes of Suffer Well (A David Gahan song) and Lilian are nice and radio-friendly, but like French Fries, they are consumed and dispersed from memory the moment they evaporate from my senses. Satisfactory but unmemorable sensory feeds.
How would I rate Playing the Angel then?
To be honest here, I had been tempted to award it a 7/10 on the basis that DM is better here than they have been for a good number of years now, but to award that on a basis of relativity against a low benchmark is ultimately an insult. The truth is that the quality of songs here, whether stand-alone or compared to the high water mark set, are nondescript. From a band that had produced some outstanding songs during its existence, I believe we are surely entitled to expect a little more.
6/10
For this reviewer, dance music is one genre of music that he loathes to comment on. This is because dance music is usually reviewed in terms of beats, textures and the tapestry of sounds that make up the feet-shuffling music that blares from one's speakers or headphones. Lyrics rarely come into the picture.
Dance music isn't exactly a form of music that you usually sit down on your couch to chill to and analyse, because the words (if any) that adorn the constructed soundscapes are usually just meaningless arbitrary phrases used to embroider the clothes of the beats beast. Emotion and/or intelligence is a commodity that is acutely lacking. Thankfully, this is something that cannot be said of Hot Chip's The Warning. For this is an album that offers much in both shifting one's feet and moving one's heart.
The Warning is Hot Chip's sophomore effort and I, admittedly, did not have the benefit of catching their debut to fully decipher their influences and direction. The band appears influenced by a myriad of dance heavyweights, of which their sounds the band seems to mix and concoct into a whole new recipe altogether. I could throw the names of New Order, Aphex Twin and Air into the mix, but it wouldn't be helpful as Hot Chip doesn't actually sound much like any of them. But whatever the influences may be, one thing is much in evidence. And that is, this band can write pop tunes...and they also have things to say, even if some of it is just plain prankish.
The album opens with Careful, a song that opens with a calming ambient swirl and then, out of nowhere, shifty beats and sound effects break their way into the fold and the number morphs into a jerkily funky number that would happily find its natural habitat nesting on a dance floor. This is a good introduction to the modus operandi which is to follow. And it is leads to the first of the album's centrepieces.
And I Was A Boy From School is a pop disco tune wrapped around fat, infectious beats and is impossible to dislike. While this observation could also, ostensibly, be applied to dozens of tunes by dozens of other dance groups, Hot Chip (or possibly vocalist Alexis Taylor) infuses this great bubbly crowd-pleaser with words that you would not normally associate with dance tunes. "And I was a boy from school, helplessly helping all the rules. And there was a boy at school, hopelessly wrestling all his fools.", Taylor croons. And then the chorus comes. "We try but we don't have long, we try but we don't belong." A song about social misfits for the hip dance-clubbing horde? Such ironic misplacement for a song that wears a sensitive heart on its sleeve for an audience that couldn't recognise one. Look After Me, a most blissfully sweet and sad love song continues much in the same vein. "Look after me and I will look after you. That's something we both forgot to do.", the chorus intones. It is the sound of a million broken hearts.
But, of course, a dance group couldn't have all blues in its palette. And you couldn't accuse Hot Chip of lacking cheek. Its hit, Over And Over, is a ridiculously kitschy mega-hook that repeats itself, well, over and over. "Over and over and over and over and over, like a monkey with a miniature cymbal." You would have to surmise that the simian must be pretty ingenious to come up with a melody like this. The monkey mischief is carried very much over to the second of the album's centrepieces, the title track. The Warning is a track so gentle that it hardly registers when Taylor threatens that "Hot Chip will break your legs, snap off your head. Hot Chip will put you down, under the ground". Yeah, Hot Chip is threatening its listeners well-being. The impertinence...
While the band's vulnerability and irreverence provides an X-factor that differentiates (and elevates) it from its dance contemporaries, this band is also skilled at formulating beats that move feet. And they dare to experiment with song structures and progressions that less talented groups might be well-advised to avoid. A good example would be the song, Colours. It begins with a wistful introduction before shuffling into a glorious sunshine ditty that would put a smile on the faces of many. Arrest Yourself similarly shape-shifts all over the place, offering melodic switches that are as much surprise as pleasure. While such changes in form and delivery can administer triumphs, it can also result in miscalculations like Tchaparian, a daft track that gives the impression that the band is either not half-interested in this effort or just trying to be too clever. Experimentation is not without its pitfalls.
It is, however, gratifying that no matter the mis-steps, the album does end on a high note with its strongest track and the third and final of its centrepieces, No Fit State. An atmospheric number that envelopes and then refuses to loosen its grip, its mantra that "I'm in no fit state, I'm in no fit shape. To fall in love with you, to make a record of my life. To lose any more than I need, to watch my fingers bleed. To bust my body up, to drink out of your cup. To act a fool in love, acting hard's been tough." is both devilish and honest all at once. No Fit State effortlessly and confidently encapsulates all that is good about The Warning. And there is a fair amount of good in this album.
7/10
It is difficult, no, make that nigh on impossible to review Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not without alluding to the massive amount of (over?) hype that has heralded the arrival of the Arctic Monkeys. By now, everyone would have known or maybe heard about the famous internet success saga of the band.
From playing a gig in a Sheffield pub called The Grapes where their music caught on with the audience, demo mp3s and assorted live recordings started circulating on the internet. Before long, interest in them rose and word about them grew exponetially, with the infamous British musical hacks speedily jumping onto the bandwagon. A record deal and a couple of No. 1 singles soon materialised on the horizon and thereafter, the Arctic Monkeys became the fastest and biggest selling Brit band in the land since God knows when.
Was the hype justified? It was a question which bothered me. NME saw fit to award Whatever a perfect 10/10. Most other Brit music writers didn't stray too far from blazoning it as something akin to a masterpiece. On the other side of the Atlantic, North American critics laughed at the lofty eulogies that came the way of the Monkeys and opined that the Monkeys offered nothing new and were plainly just another dime a dozen British band with Northern accents. So who was right?
For all the hype that besieged the band, raving about the band's raw energy and aptitude for a tune, the British music critics also seem to have expediently forgotten to mention the band's lack of dimension in its music, despite there being conspicuous changes of pace in the album, noticably Riot Van. There is a homogeneity that seems to course through the veins of Whatever, making it a tab arduous listening to an album that lurks mainly between furious punk and mid-tempo ska and which offers little ideas besides straight energy rush.
Talking about the songs themselves, the melodies can be a "hit or miss" affair. A typical example of a miss would be opener, The View from the Afternoon, which hurtles along pleasantly but lacks a distinctive hook. The rather dismal Perhaps Vampires is A Bit Strong But... and From the Ritz to the Rubble can also be rather grating.
As for the hits, the well-known Fake Tales of San Francisco is a mighty decent song, aided by a surprisingly addictive riff during its bridge and coda. Its only problem is that it doesn't really sound outstanding and I could think of a number of other Brit post-punk bands who can possibly do just as well, if not better. The Monkeys' other hit, I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor induces exactly the same feeling as well. And these are the hits! Maybe all that hype has brought expectations to an unreasonable level. Well, maybe, but let it be said that there are moments of beauty here, such as When the Sun Goes Down and the album does close with the rather brilliant A Certain Romance, which must suggest that this band is capable of better, greater things to come.
What the British reviewers got absolutely spot-on though, is their lauding of the voice and lyricism of 19 year-old lead singer, Alex Turner. Turner is, without doubt, the star of the show. Blessed with a lusty larynx that many rock vocalists would break a limb for, the South Yorkshire lad is sharp, observational and remarkably gifted in his vocabulary and intricate depiction of everyday life in Sheffield (or England?). One would be hard-pressed to find another 19 year-old as articulate as this lad. The potential and talent are hard to miss.
At the end of the day, the query remains. So who was right, the euphoric Brit hacks or the cynical North American journos? Rather than answer that, I put forward a couple of other pertinent questions:
Is potential alone worthy of a perfect score of 10/10?
And are the Monkeys really perceptibly better than other fellow post-punk bands in the market?
I would think the answer to both of these questions is "No" and so, it's a...
6.5/10
The Americans just don't get it.
Muse is a band that draws sharply divided critiques, depending on which side of the Atlantic they originate from. An apposite example would be its latest LP Black Holes and Revelations. Most critics from the British Isles lauded it as an ambitious, grandiose piece of work that explored new soundscape horizons. The Yanks just remarked it to be pompous and perposterous. Who is right? I admit that one hardly aid one's own cause when one of your songs is ludicrously named Knights of Cydonia, but having said that, there is plenty to like in an effort that is, patently, Muse's most accessible to date.
Muse has always come across like The Bends meets Bohemian Rhapsody. A band that, somehow, decided OK Computer wasn't epic enough and so decided to go totally daft on synthesised orchestrations, keyboard flourishes and ear-splitting Metallica arpeggios. From its debut Showbiz to its last album Absolution (which finally broke America), Muse has never strayed from this modus operandi. Indeed, its sound has only gotten progressively tighter, more epic and arguably more over-the-top. It was something you either bought wholeheartedly or just despise. For me, the same old approach was approaching its sell-by date and beginning to sound rehashed to death. It was with much trepidation then, that I approached their latest.
The opener, Take A Bow, started (relatively) understated enough. Full of swirling keyboards and syntheised beats, with nary a guitar in sight, Matt Bellamy proceeded to mumble (rather than to typically screech) his indecipherable lyrics through a meat grinder. "Hmmm, something new, this could be promising...", I told myself. And then, of course, a wall of epic guitars comes crashing into the picture and it's "Same old, same old" then. A leopard just couldn't change its spots, could it? Maybe. Maybe not.
So I was rather surprised by the next track Starlight. Opening with the sound of grinding guitars, the delicate sounds of a piano then breaks the monotony and adds a pop touch that's almost brave, considering the source. It's Keane with guitar bite. It's pop. But most importantly, it's different.
Starlight is followed by the album's first single, the surprisely sexed-up Supermassive Black Hole, where crunching funk is met by Bellamy's Prince-impersonating falsettos. It's a form that Muse has never allowed its musical beast to take shape in and it's quite refreshing. Map of the Problematique continues in the vein of experimentation, sounding like a twisted Depeche Mode, only that David Gahan's masculine baritone is replaced by Bellmay's sinewy shrieks. And the sound is still even more densely layered than Depeche Mode would usually have it. It's still typical Muse overblown work but hey, it marks an offbeat approach.
After the strong opening, it is almost inevitable that the middle might seem to sag in comparison. Soldier's Poem, despite having its heart in the right place, sounds like a filler. Invincible is Muse-by-numbers. And then Assassin comes crashing in.
Assassin opens with (overly) aggressive guitar licks that left me groaning, "So they don't change, do they?" Well, they don't. But Assassin does have a chorus to die for. It's the closest they have come to (besides Exo-Politics) in replicating the formative baby-steps sound of their debut. And it's pretty good. One really does have to look at the fact that only two songs might sound like they have come from their debut that this band has progressed.
I have to disagree with critics who said that the album ends on a strong note. City of Delusion, despite surprising me with acoustic guitars, sounded like a typical Muse track by its end. Hoodoo is not worth mentioning and while Knights of Cydonia had many a critic proclaiming it to be Muse at their imperious best, to me it is simply an impervious mess. Forging a musical equivalent of a fantasy novel by creating a soundscape replete with galloping horses and what-have-yous might sound great on paper but on execution, it's just plain daft. This might explain why I'm not a Rush fan.
Muse is a band you either like or hate. It's rarely just an "ok". But Black Holes and Revelations sees the band creating a relatively more palatable sound that might reach and grab a larger audience for its music. Although the move has alienated some of its core listeners (these are the same people who would call Starlight and Supermassive Black Hole unpleasant sell-outs and adore Assassin to death), it is a sound strategic move that has also seen the band produce its strongest work yet.
Now, as to the question why American critics still do not dig Muse. I can only offer this theory. For too long, the Americans seem to mostly value truth, honesty and sincerity in their music. Which must be why they seem to more eagerly embrace earnest singer-songwriter types/bands and punk bands. This is also the main reason why American audiences usually seem to reject the more arch Brit bands such as Blur and Pulp in the past (Is Franz Ferdinand liked more by the Yanks for their infectious post-punk dance disco or their supreme archness?).
When it comes to Brit bands that sing about ridiculous stuff like aliens and flying saucers, the Americans simply scratch their heads and go "duh?!". Music does not always have to be rooted in reality. OTT imagination/theories can be as potent a muse as everyday occurrences/stories, and just as good.
But hey, the Americans just don't get it.
8/10
