THE 2ND LAW

"MUSE will eat itself," my son predicted confidently in 2009 as we listened in mounting horror to 'The Resistance'. "And it will happen with their next album." Well, what do you know, he was right. Sadly.

BELLAMY's songwriting has always been key to this band, and on this album he appears to have mellowed into inevitable, if premature, middle-age. His songs are a little rotund around the middle, a little too comfortable, a little - pleasant. Any raunchiness is faked (I submit the execrable faux-funky 'Panic Station' as an example). The band is now institutionalised, a national treasure, as demonstrated by their invitation to write a song for the London Olympics - which produced the single worst song in the history of event-based music ('Survival'). I feel embarrassed just listening to it. And it gets its own prelude! Really. The schmaltzy ballads and fake concert hall piano twirls ('Explorers', I'm looking at you) are grating. Only at the end of the album does he bestir himself to produce something listenable - both parts of the title track are corkers for different reasons. Finally some sinew visible under the layers of fat, some beauty emerges from the confected landscape. Bonus: the tracks make an important point. Two tracks for the MUSE playlist.

Two other musicians play with him, though at times they're hard to spot. One of them gets to write and sing a couple of songs. Ah, band democracy. Well, they're better than some of the stinkers BELLAMY perpetrates on us.

I wish I had better news to report.