Black Holes And Revelations

Black Holes & Revelations is the album that has reawakened the music fan in me. I can't remember when I last 'got into' an album so much - probably the late eighties/early nineties as a long-haired student listening to the latest hard rock sounds and playing all my Van Halen, Aerosmith, AC/DC to death. Back then I had to save for albums and literally knew every sonic detail by heart. I regret that in more recent years I have bought albums and auditioned them with my finger hovering over the skip track - I wouldn't know the track listing or know how the tracks seague into another; hey, I wouldn't even know half of them were missing(!). For me albums had almost become shelf-fillers rather than truely-prized possessions. I tried to check out contemporary sounds, nu-metal and the like, but could never quite see the point when all the BEST music had already been made..

But suddenly my tired, jaded ears have been totally refreshed and sonically tickled to aural orgasm by the sounds of MUSE! I can't leave this album alone - it follows me from home into the car, gym.. everywhere and once I hear the final flourishes of Knights of Cydonia I have to press PLAY all over again. It's a compulsion! I only wish I had got into this band earlier - I had been curious having heard previous tracks but I was tired of trying out new sounds only to be disappointed. Now my personal REVELATION is that I CAN look forward to new music and don't have to stay in my own private rock timewarp. I'm 37 now, and perhaps too old to cover all my walls and ceiling with Kerrang posters (not sure what the wife would make of it!), but hey, I feel the resurgence of youth and enthusiasm for contemporary music again! I want to check out the back catalogue (reason for logging on), find out about gig tickets. I absolutely love this album in its entirety - bought it on the strength of Knights track and found out I already knew Starlight and Supermassive Black Hole from the radio - but then the beauty is how the album grows on you, every track contributes to the whole and I want to listen to it from start to finish as it is listed (no skipping, rearranging or random play). I am really excited about listening to the previous albums now and have been reading everyone elses' reviews.

A few words on the video now.. you know the Knights of Cydonia video. How cool, crazy, amazing is that?!! Space-western, kung-fu, girl on a unicorn and dancing Chinese man!! Plus the band appearing as jukebox-generated holograms in their own video! If it is ever a private fantasy to have been a Rockstar rather than an engineer, accountant, truck-driver (or whatever we all do), then I would have loved to have been immortalised in that video!

I like Muse anyway - I already had Showbiz and Origins of Symetry but tended to listen to my favourites and skip through the ones that I wasn't so keen on.

With Black Holes and Revelations I don't have any favourites, I LOVE the whole album.

There is definately a "Muse" theme running through the album but unlike previous albums they have taken so many influences from elsewhere that it doesn't get 'samey'

The influences and themes within the songs range from Queen to flamenco to Tchicovski to the Knight Rider theme tune!

Tomorrow morning I will be playing it again and singing along at full belt in my car - shame my commute is only ten minutes!

Never a band to rest on their laurels, Muse have come back harder and better than ever with this album. Anyone who thinks they've deserted their roots clearly hasn't listened to it properly. So many tracks are instantly recognisable as PURE MUSE: Starlight, Soldier's Poem, Assassin to name just a couple. But the absolute corker of the album is saved for the very end, in the shape of Knights of Cydonia, so much so that it just makes me want to play the whole thing straight over again! Which I'm doing right now :-)

Muse have come back with the album of their lives, and I can't wait to see them live this year - well done lads!!