Album Review: “Drones” by Muse
It’s easy to make fun of Muse for jumping on the “war is bad, mkay?” bandwagon. As seemingly in unison as the artistic community-at-large may seem to speak in regards to American imperialism, it clearly hasn’t been enough to stop the Military Industrial Complex in its murderous tracks. As far as art is concerned in regards to social commentary, there is nothing wrong if one happens to agree with one’s contemporaries, so whether criticizing the status quo is an original idea or not is only a relevant argument to make in regard to the artistic merit of how it’s done.
That said, this article could have been titled, “Rock star reads book, makes album.” Upon reading “Predators: The CIA’s Drone War on al Qaeda” by UMass-Dartmouth professor Dr. Brian Glyn Williams, Muse frontman Matt Bellamy became fairly obsessed over the idea of remote-control hitmen, and now we have the less-than-subtle “Drones.” Can you imagine what would have happened if he’d read Ayn Rand’s “The Fountainhead” or Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle”? If Bellamy ever picks up an issue of Adbusters, we’re done for.
The interesting subtext is the pain borne from Bellamy’s recent split with Kate Hudson, with whom he has a child. The narrative of abandonment, dehumanization, emptiness, and assassination reads on two levels, which is fortunate, because that’s about the only depth this album has to offer.
Sure, popular music can be an effective political platform. Maybe Pink Floyd was on to something with “The Wall.” Maybe Edwin Starr was correct when he concluded, “absolutely nothin’,” in response to his own question of what war is good for. Perhaps Ozzy struck a note with “War Pigs” that resonated later in Nine Inch Nails’ “March of the Pigs.” But recently, at least in the mainstream, the only bands that have consistently simultaneously merged music and politics with any success have been Bjork and Radiohead (and arguably U2). Most of the rest have either been relatively obscure, inconsistent, or unsuccessful in their delivery or more predisposed to bland capitalism.
What Muse does very well is presenting operatic, energetic rock straddling Brit-pop and metal as effectively as has, say, Billy Corgan. Even putting them in the same sentence as Corgan is high praise. Each member of the trio is proficient, at least, in his area of expertise. In part due to their penchant towards virtuosity (or at least athletics), they’ve often been mistakenly labeled “prog”; however, they lack the complexity of true progressive rock bands like King Crimson, Rush, or Yes.
With Robert John “Mutt” Lange (who has worked with a lot of big, loud acts, including Foreigner, Def Leppard, Nickelback, and Lady Gaga) at the helm in the recording studio, Muse’s pre-existing similarities to some other big name rock bands—like AC/DC, Queen, or Van Halen—are sharply exacerbated. In “Drones,” Muse has increasingly become little more than a conglomerated, garbled echo of great bands of the past. Fortunately, they have disposed of recent IDM influences and (mostly) let go of the pretense of sweeping strings. In their place are big drums and fancy fretwork as well as soaring, theatrical vocals.
“Dead Inside” sweeps in with a chorus of synthed-up vocals taken straight from the Bon Jovi playbook and follows up sounding like a heavy version of INXS. Lyrically, it is many, many stanzas elucidating the aforementioned fact that our protagonist is dead inside.
“[Drill Sergeant]” is the lowest moment of the album. If you’ve ever heard the famous, “How can you have any pudding if you don’t eat your meat?” (who hasn’t?) this is gonna be déjà vu. It’s 30 seconds of military hazing. Enjoy.
Taking snippets of dialogue from “[Drill Sergeant]” as lyric fodder, “Psycho” emerges as a hard-hitting rock shuffle a la Marilyn Manson, and it’s probably one of the higher points of the album with its in-your-face guitars and cutting-to-the-bone criticism of the military brainwashing that happens every day in this country. The message isn’t delivered with much poetry, but it’s a good one nonetheless. True, the main hook is pretty juvenile, sounding like the first riff a 16-year-old kid came up with in his bedroom, but Lange puts all the pieces in the right places, and Bellamy totally sells it. After all, his specialty is Wes-Anderson-type vocal cinematics: it’s Bellamy’s bailiwick.
“Mercy” just screams, “Look! We’re kind of like Coldplay! Honest!” Fuzzed-out guitars and four-on-the-floor drums carry the kind of octave piano hooks that Chris Martin built an empire upon, and in the chorus, an arpeggiator occupies the same space as those fuzzed-out guitars. When they don’t sound like Coldplay, they sound like The Killers. Meanwhile, Bellamy carries on about being hypnotized, “absent gods,” and “men in cloaks” “trying to devour” his soul. As pale as it was, even “Viva La Vida” was a more genuine and lucid political statement (probably by accident).
Like the Incredible Hulk exploding his shirt off of him, Bellamy opens “Reapers” with a blazing display of fret-tapped arpeggios. No one can deny that the dude can shred. But overall, “Reapers” sounds like Aerosmith covering Van Halen (or vice versa). Bellamy talks about being killed by drones, the CIA, etc., but fortunately the lyrics are largely unintelligible (as well as largely irrelevant) as the only thing that happens on this track worth noting is an impressive display of guitar-god plumage. The last minute of the track is slowed-down and at least twice as heavy, feeling much like a note-by-note transcription of the ending of Smashing Pumpkins’ “Geek U.S.A.” That’s cool and all, but guys, “Siamese Dream” was 23 years ago. Along those lines, the Pumpkins’ “X.Y.U.” and “Tales of a Scorched Earth” were more potent displays — via brutal guitar abuse — of screaming, white-hot indignation than this is.
“The Handler” is pedestrian to the point of being accidentally silly. A good lyricist, or even just one who’s trying, will find another way of saying “I’m sad” than simply stating it outright. Bellamy, however, doesn’t. And musically, it’s just loud and flashy with not a lot going on upstairs: it would be boring if played on acoustic guitars, which means that the pedals and amps are doing all the work.
Predictably, “[JFK]” is President Kennedy accompanied by electric guitars and strings. It leads into “Defectors,” in which Bellamy issues the first thoughtful lyric of the album: “Your blood is blue and your mind is turned green / And your belly is all yellow / You believe your throne is too high to be overthrown.” This proves that with a little effort, Bellamy can write decent lyrics. Why he often chooses not to remains a mystery.
If The Killers ever write a rock opera (please, no), they’ll have to tiptoe around “Revolt,” which, taken out of context, is a eyeliner-smeared, pierced-lip-quivering emo anthem. At least its message is positive: “You can revolt.”
“Aftermath” is campy as hell, with Bellamy’s faux-bluesy guitar licks sauntering over a string orchestra, like he’s sitting alone among the ruins of some destroyed city. The lyrics read far better than most on the album. But juxtaposed with the overly-saccharine arrangement and Bellamy’s usual artificially dramatic vocals, it becomes almost a mockery of what U2 did better decades ago, demonstrating that Muse really is better off hiding behind that huge wall of distortion.
Brace yourselves for “The Globalist,” which opens like the soundtrack to a Quentin Tarantino film as a lonely whistle floats over a tremolo guitar to the accompaniment of a thunderstorm. Oh, the pathos! In this song, our hero decides to become a nuclear state unto himself and destroy the world, and he takes ten minutes to do it. It comes off sounding like the music to the ending credits of some shoot-em-up video game. If you’ve heard Edvard Elgar’s “Nimrod” from his “Enigma Variations,” you’ll realize during Bellamy’s Liberace impression at the end of “The Globalist” that rock bands aren’t the only ones from whom Muse steals their thunder. The stupidest thing about it is that the “Enigma Variations” couldn’t possibly have less to do with politics or war. If they’d ripped off the 1812 Overture or Beethoven’s Third Symphony, the plagiarism would at least have made topical sense. Bellamy just couldn’t think of anything better to do, musically. It’ll be exciting on stage, for sure, but it’s utterly cheap. Then there is the final line: “I just wanted to be loved.” Somebody give this dude a hug already!
But wait, it gets worse! Way worse. In the style of P.D.Q. Bach, Victor Borge, or maybe even Weird “Al” Yankovic, the final track is a mournful madrigal about our hero’s family who were killed by—you guessed it!—drones. If this album were called “Bananas,” the lyrics to this last tune would read as follows: “Bananas / Bananas / Gosh, I do like bananas.” It is sort of impressive, though (although a little unnerving), that Bellamy would literally go to this extent: to straight-up compose and record a madrigal about drones. That’s dedication.
Upon hearing Muse’s “Drones,” my four-year-old remarked, “If I listen through this hole, I hear stupid music.” So if “Drones” really blows your mind, try reading a little Orwell or Huxley, or maybe even look into the collected works of Howard Zinn or Noam Chomsky (and, by the way, welcome to 2015). You could check out Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan, or any of the great American folk singers, or buy a heavy metal or ‘70s rock compilation album, because what happens in “Drones” is old hat. Like Dr. Frankenstein, Muse has taken decomposing bits of other bands and sewn them together into something you might not want to be alone with. If you’re looking for serious music, keep scrolling. If you don’t care what the lyrics say, you just wanna rawk out, maaan, then eat it up; “Drones” is for you. If you really love Muse, this is frankly not their worst album musically, but it would be an insult to call it their best.
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