ORIGIN OF SYMMETRY

Muse's second album was my first contact with the band but I had never really pushed investigations further because they had sounded a little too derivative of Radiohead and a tougher R.E.M. with a twist of RHCPeppers rythms. But the permanent debate of the Muse lobby in our forum did intrigue me enough to re- investigate the band and by a twist of fate, I went to rent from the library two of their albums the day before they got included in the Archives.

Some very pleasant tracks if you enjoy strong, intelligent and moderately creative high-energy alternative rock such as New Born, Space Dementia, Citizen Erased, but they tend to be relatively noisy and repetitive although almost every track has some merits but none are flawless either. Micro Cuts is actually vocally impressive, Bellamy having a real good voice that unfortunately sounds too much like Thom Yorke for his own good. But I must say by listening to this album, I have a little trouble still to find what the big deal is made of MUSE by some progheads: Sure the musicianship is apt than the playing is impressive but so is the RHCP, and not a tenth of the hype is made on the forum about that band. By the end of this album, you feel actually relieved that the silence returns as the painful threshold was coming a little too close for comfort. If I want HI-NRG RNR, I'll get Sex Blood Sugar Magick and get a load of adrenaline that Muse is incapable of delivering to me, although I realize that this is not the goal of Muse. There are too many delicate moments (Screenager a.o.) to actually compare them further, but listening to the whole album in one session is proving too much for me - too much bombardment of the same stuff. I believe Muse would gain a lot from an extra player such as a violin/cello player to widen if not their musical scope, at least their sound spectrum.

A pleasant but hardly groundbreaking album from a higher than average alternative rock band, but nothing really worthy of inclusion on our beloved archives but a bloody good RNR album nevertheless!! Enough to warrant a third star on the PA rating system even if not prog! But simply not enough to join my living room shelves in a more permanent fashion!