Black Holes and Revelations

Q recently gave the new album from Muse - that hyperbolic sci-fi-inspired band from the UK - titled Black Holes and Revelations - five stars.

Recently Sight & Sound suggested the star ranking system should be rendered null and void, as so much stuff and nonsense to sell papers (S&S merely sells magazines), which is why Eyewear uses the five spectacles system instead.

BH&R is an album that calls for weird yet precise synergistic blurbs: consider the following formula: Pink Floyd + Ultravox + Queen + New Order + Radiohead = Muse.

In otherwords, this is not a subtle sound, but one prone to grandiose utterance. But it is thrilling, and oddly fresh, despite the "Mr. Roboto" vocoder effects in places and the endless invention; indeed, what was once postmodern art's best tactic, endless playful and eclectic invention, has now become a vaguely tedious nervous tic that infects every new 21st century product.

The opening track is stupendous ("Take A Bow"); the fourth, "Map of the Problematique" would not be out of place on Achtung Baby, if that had been produced by G. Moroder.

Have fun; inject a diode; zip to Japan on a jet-pack; listen to this space-age outfit.

4 specs.

Comments

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