Music Review: Muse - The Resistance

From Rolling Stone Nagazine Free Music here: http://www.rollingstone.com/reviews/album/29924422/review/29951384/the_resistance Muse: The Resistance Many art rockers have symphonic pretensions, but it takes gumption to compose a "symphony." Enter Muse: The British trio's fifth album closes with "Exogenesis: Symphony," a three-part suite full of grandiose orchestral swells and lyrical koans like "Why are we? Who are we?" Muse's humongous cresting and tumbling songs have earned them a massive cult following, along with criticism that the band sounds a little too much like its heroes. (Frontman Matthew Bellamy has a serious Thom Yorke fixation.) Songs like the industrial-flavored "Uprising" prove again that Muse know how to whip up an almighty roar. But the lyrics are pompous doggerel ("Coercive notions re-evolve/A universe is trapped inside a tear"), and they borrow shamelessly from Radiohead and Queen without the former's musical invention or the latter's cheeky swagger. Ultimately, The Resistance is a patchwork of expert clichés that leaves a listener wondering just what the point of Muse is. Why are they? Who are they?