A-Muse-fied

Gosh, I'm purely hooked on Muse now after freshly inputting more of their songs into my brain. The thing about Muse songs is that you cannot get them into your head or swallow all of them at one shot. Their songs have to be taken in chunks and bits in order to appreciate their creative artistic features. I got to know Muse in early 2007 and like most people, initially thought that they're bunch of weirdos. It didn't help when the first song I heard from them was 'Supermassive Black Hole'. I was like, "Who's this guy using falsetto to sing some really weird tune?"

Then, I decided to check out 'Knights of Cydonia' after hearing from TG about a weird music video with cowboys and laser guns. Another reason why I check out was that Channel 5 at that time was using Muse riffs for the Prison Break advertisements. In any case, I was quite impressed with the tune of 'Knights of Cydonia' and then I started listening to other songs like 'Time is Running Out' and 'Hysteria'. The one that really nailed my liking for Muse was 'Plug in Baby'. Oh man, that starting electric guitar riff is just totally awesome and memorable. I then watch a couple of their live performances in Youtube and once again, I wanna reiterate that they're one funny rock band whose live performances are better than their album versions. They can replicate the album quality of their songs and even do better. Their album versions are really good but they improvised with so much creativity and inject so much of liveliness in their live performances that it's just so amazing to watch them and headbang along with them. In short, they are musical GENIUSES.

So, after listening to H.A.A.R.P, the first batch of new songs inputted into my mind are 'New Born', 'Invincible', 'Blackout' and 'Apocalypse Please'. These songs are not marketed as much as 'Knights of Cydonia' or 'Time is Running Out' and so, not many would know them. Of all of them, I'm most impressed with 'New Born' cos the electric guitar beautifully comes in after the piano melody. Each of these four are have very distinct musical styles. 'Invincible' has an optimist feel to it, 'Blackout' is mild and melancholic and 'Apocalypse Please' is Gothic piano.

Then, still got another next set which I inputted just a couple of days ago - 'Feeling Good', 'Micro Cuts', 'Take a bow' (NOT Rihanna please..haha), and 'Soldier's Poem'. This set just proves that Muse is a total "out of this world" rock band. 'Feeling Good' is a jazz piece, very brilliant cover of the original song. 'Micro Cuts' is some heavy rock falsetto screaming and 'Soldier's Poem' has the Wilfred Owen feel. 'Take a bow' has a fusion of techno and heavy rock - wait, yes..TECHNO, so divergent from the rock branch but they could reconcile both in one song! Oh man, this is unbelievable but Muse can play jazz, rock, indie, electronica, classical piano, gothic - you name it! - and fuse and mix them around to create some musical masterpieces. Seriously, they're very very talented and I don't think many bands can match up to their range of artistic musical capabilities. I'm blown away by these geniuses :)