ORIGIN OF SYMMETRY

Just like most teenagers I had to partially rely on mainstream media to get my own music exploration started. Since I'm not accustom to rejecting any particular genre or artist just on the general ideology of my surroundings, when time permits, I give any new artist what I consider to be a fair chance. It was only after a few years of listening to local radio and music TV stations that I came to an understanding that I had much more to gain by going online and meeting like-minded people to find the music that would fulfill me. But there were a few exceptions to my failure to gather interesting music from the mainstream and Muse was definitely one of them.

My first encountered with the band was through their video for Bliss which was probably the second most creative use of the music video format that I've seen since Tool! It did create enough impression on me at the time but somehow I just never bothered to pick up any of their albums. Still it didn't stop my younger brother from investing his money into their albums which is quite surprising since we usually have polar opposite tastes related to music. Since we, at that time, lived in the same household it was unavoidable to hear bits and pieces of Origin Of Symmetry and all of the band's follow up releases over the period of the next few years. Eventually I even copied a few of their albums to my MP3 player and gave them a proper listen.

To tell you the truth I felt originally disappointed by this particular release because the bits and pieces that I've heard previously gave a much more interesting representation of the band. It was as if I already heard all of the best moments and what was left might sometimes be great but for most part consisted of non-essential material. It's as if the band packed the first 3/5 of the album with their best material while leaving the remainder of the album pretty hollow. I do enjoy all of the five singles (i.e. New Born, Bliss, Hyper Music, Plug In Baby and Feeling Good) plus there are two highly enjoyable lengthy pieces called Citizen Erased and Space Dementia that are well worth checking out. If only the band didn't insist on making a 50+ minute album then this would have easily become a much better record.

Origin Of Symmetry was a breakthrough album for Muse and even though some of their later albums made them even more popular over the years it still holds up pretty well in their discography. Still I don't consider it more than a good, but non-essential release due to all the filler.

***** star songs: New Born (6:03) Bliss (4:12)

**** star songs: Space Dementia (6:20) Hyper Music (3:21) Plug In Baby (3:39) Citizen Erased (7:19) Feeling Good (3:19) Megalomania (4:38)

*** star songs: Micro Cuts (3:38) Screenager (4:20) Dark Shines (4:47)