WILL OF THE PEOPLE

There's a new Muse album and it is quite horrible! 'Will of the People' is the English art rockers' ninth studio release and was supposedly written to serve as a 'best-of' or a 'greatest hits' compilation of new songs (which the band preferred to do over a proper 'The Best of Muse', as it had been proposed to them by their label), but the end result is a bag of ten virtually unlistenable, tedious, pretentious and outright disgusting songs. I can hardly think of another rock album that has made me feel this way, as I have heard some pretty terrible records along the years, but this one really is Muse hitting rock bottom - there is nothing I can take from this album, nothing I enjoy in it; Instead, 'Will of the People' happens to be a collection of the worst traits of the band's music, lumped up together and all kind of focused on a very pessimistic outlook on reality, a sad reflection of the world we live in right now, and a not too positive prediction (referring to the final track on the album). All good, but the music is beyond bad.

Opening up Muse's ninth is an awful cover of Marilyn Manson's 'The Beautiful People', this one is quite bad and it seems quite heroic to even go through the whole 3:20 minutes of playtime. 'Compliance' is unnecessarily cocky for my taste, while 'Liberation' reminds me for whatever reason of Queen, and this is an unwanted reference on such a weak album; The next three tracks are entirely lacking any personality, 'Kill or Be Killed' is the heaviest song on the album and should be of some more interest but is in reality a mediocre heavy rocker from Muse, 'Verona' and 'Euphoria' are boring and bland, and the final track is another unlistenable disasterpiece, difficult to go through.

Yes, Muse do cross several genres on this pretty tight 2022 release, but the idea behind it is realized quite poorly, as they simultaneously fall into the trap of not being very original. Then again, even if we take away these seemingly more minor flaws, the quality of the compositions on 'Will of the People' is just not good, there is practically nothing positive you could bring up about this record, it is not enjoyable, it is not pleasingly memorable, it is not entertaining, it is not experimental; It is bad, goofy and sloppy, and I truly hope that this LP does not indicate the future direction of rock music, because it would be a dark perspective in this case. The good news - it is all up-hill from here from Muse! Right??

I'm something of a fan of this band having discovered them just after 2003's Absolution which still in my eyes is one of the best albums of this century. Can this current release possibly get anyway near that?! Well they give it a good go for sure. Not many bands have a guy as talented as Matt Bellamy and he very much helms this release writing all 10 of the original songs. In general not much nowadays cuts through for me either lyrically or musically. This manages to do both on every track. It does lay it down clearly that we live in a world on the brink of disaster and really there is no other conclusion to be drawn , unless you live in fairy land. Matt indulges his favourite themes of government control , ''brainwashing'' if you like, on the tracks Will Of The People, Liberation and Compliance but every song is a different entity expressing a different aspect of the same feeling. My favourite tracks are mostly on the second side of the album (vinyl wise) Kill Or Be Killed is an excellent metal influenced track while Verona is just so sublime and beautiful. I especially love the pipe organ on You Make Me Feel Like It's Halloween , probably the first time its been used since Meglomania on the Origin Of Symmetry album. Alienation, helplessness and despair abound and if we don't do something soon then the final track can only be true and we (really) are f**king f**ked! Overall in prog terms this could just be written off as there are no extended pieces like The Globalist or Exogenesis Symphony. However it very much floats my boat and flows very nicely.