The 2nd Law
While The 2nd Law never hits the heights of some of Muse’s early work – especially their 2001 masterpiece Origin of Symmetry – there’s lots of good stuff on this record. I certainly prefer it to their previous effort, 2009’s The Resistance, but it remains inconsistent. When it’s good, it’s really good. Opener ‘Supremacy’ reminds me of early Pure Reason Revolution at the beginning, then eases into full-blown operatics before neatly shifting back into the chunky riff. Great start. ‘Panic Station’ is funky as hell and shows a really nice development of their previous ‘Supermassive Black Hole’ sound. If Prince made prog-rock... Album closer ‘The 2nd Law – Isolated System’ also sounds fresh: an understated but excellent journey. Equally, there are a number of tracks that are by-the-numbers bland stadium fillers. ‘Follow Me’ feels like a discarded offcut from a previous record, and Olympic-tune ‘Survival’ is just plain lazy. They’re so much better than this; shame it was the song they chose to play live at the opening ceremony to 900 million people.
A mixed bag, then, but the good parts outweigh the bad, and overall it deserves its place on the 2012 list. Just.