Resistance Review

   If there is one worthwhile mainstream progressive rock band of this decade, it would be Muse. Even though they have battled constant comparisons to Radiohead, their albums "Absolution" and "Black Holes and Revelations" are simply the best neo-prog albums since Dream Theater's Images and Words. However, The Resistance delves too far into some stereotypical progressive elements(outside of samples and of course being epic) like the piano and long spacey runs. I immediately became a fan of their spacey elements combined with Matt Bellamy's Tom Morello influenced pitch shifting, but there is no truly interesting guitar work to be found here, and the rest of the band doesn't help make anything more interesting. The Resistance resembles Queen more than their previous works, but the problem is Queen was actually grounbreaking. In Queen, when Brian May would play one of his trademark solos after most of the song being focused on Freddy Mercury, everyone would be impressed by his trademark style. With Resistance, it feels like its just there rather than being something you've been waiting for. Classical music has been a huge influence with Muse, but it's too bad everything else just isn't as interesting.

   There is some good in this otherwise boring album, Uprising is somewhat reminiscent of Time Is Running Out with its bass line, and Resistance has a patented Muse chorus, and ironically might be Muse's best song. Unnatural Selection will have Muse die-hards feeling nostalgic of the how bombastic Origin of Symmetry was occasionally, but that's about it. I don't review classical music, but Muse's use of the soft/loud mechanic ends up rock out a little in the beginning and use the piano for the rest, and not even in a way as interesting as Dream Theater sometimes did, and hell, Muse's previous work. The rest of the album is about as questionable as the Queen-esque United States of Eurasia, it's not very interesting, and the overdone classical piano work make it very hard deciding who this album is meant for.

2.5 / 5