MUSE - Simulation Theory

How do you do fellow kids? 80’s aesthetic is pretty cool, huh? Gosh I’m such a retro nerd haha, hey remember arcades? Far out, man! 
(this is just a jab at the 80's style fad going around, not necessarily at this album)

So MUSE dropped a new album titled Simulation Theory and I want to talk about what I feel about it. Now let me premise this by saying, I like like MUSE a lot. Origin Of Symmetry is one of my favorite albums of all time and Absolution and Black Holes And Revelations are great albums that listen from time to time. But now every time I hear something new from Muse I’m just not impressed by them anymore, every time it just feels like they could do so much more with their music. So that being said, let’s start going through this 21 tracks long album! Jesus. It’s actually 11 tracks but the second half is alternative versions of the songs and I’m not going to talk about them in this post.

        
The albums opener Algorithm is okay in my opinion. Start of the song is nothing special and kinda just locks the idea that, yes this is an 80’s style album but the songs second half actually gets good with beautiful strings in the back and Matt's vocals on top of them. I don’t really have anything to say about the next song, The Dark Side. it’s nothing special but it’s not terrible either. Next one is my favorite song from this album Pressure! I heard Pressure before they released this album and it actually got me hyped for the album. The guitar riff is great and energetic, the chorus is fun and Matt’s vocals are great in this song! I will be definitely listening to this song in the future. The music video is a great little homage to Back to the Future and it has Terry Crews in it!

         

Right after this great song they smack you in the face with the worst god damn song in this album, Propaganda. The repeating pro-pro-pro-propaganda robot voice is just so bad and the western yeehaw cowboy solo is just weird. After this comes the song Break It To Me. Matt’s vocals are good in this song but the Egyptian groove is weird in this 80’s contexts and especially after that cowboy solo. I don’t know if they are trying to paint this picture that you are traveling all these different places in this simulation and that’s why there are so many different cultural tones in this album. Something Human is pretty basic modern MUSE song. Something you would listen to on a road trip and after couple of minutes you forget it’s even there. Thought Contagion is pretty repetitive and doesn’t really go anywhere, it’s just “woooah woooah” from the beginning to the end. Get Up and Fight is the cheesy and inspirational part of the album! It’s a teenage power pop song with generic lyrics! Yaay. Anyways, this next song I actually liked, Blockades. It sounds like a old MUSE song updated with their new sound and it works! I love the guitars sound in the background and in the solos.  Aaaand again after something good they slap you with something bad, Dig Down...I don’t like this song. It just sounds like they reused beat from the song “Madness” from Muses 2012 album “The 2nd Law” and somehow they managed to made it even more flat and now with repetitive and bland lyrics! The Void closes this album and it’s a pretty good closing track for this album. The song builds up slowly to this nice drum beat and strong vocals and stays there for a while, but then the song starts to fade out and the album is over, just like a sky clearing up after a neon 80's reference war between two millennial's.

The whole album is a clear love letter to 80’s and I have nothing against riding this 80’s trend but they don’t really do anything new with this sound or at least anything that we haven’t heard from other artists already. It’s not a bad album by any means but knowing MUSE they are capable of doing so much more, so this album just feels kinda mediocre. I’m just happy I got couple new songs I can listen to from them, those being Pressure and Blockade. Don’t get me wrong, I like that they are trying something new with every album and are constantly evolving their music. I just hope they will someday find a good way to mix their older sound with their new stuff and not get totally swallowed by the mimic that they are using in their album.