Welcome to another post of The Dugout with yours truly! I want to take the time to thank everyone who has checked out this blog in the first few posts I have done! It means a lot that all 5 of you (just kidding...its more than that) take a little time out of your busy schedules to read my thoughts. Now onto the good stuff!
I will just say ahead of time, I love The 2nd Law. I think it is brilliantly mixed and mastered (Mark 'Spike' Stent), but it also shows signs of their roots, which is ROCK! Bellamy shows everyone that he is a reincarnation of Freddie Mercury. The man has chops for days and when he hit that high note at the end of Madness, it brings chills every time! The man is classically trained, vocally and on the piano, and it shows on the album. Let's start with the first half of the album though. The first song, Supremacy is a great opener. Those first 3 strokes on the guitar rock so hard and it sets the tone for the album. With that simple guitar riff, the strings come in and make the song fly! Madness, a single they released before the album released, is brilliant. Its combination of simple lyrics and melodic dub step-ish rhythms make it a great single to promote the album. Songs like Panic Station and Follow Me show their variety of styles in creating music. With Follow Me, the beginning sounds like a song from their older albums, but turns into a dance/electronica type song that is definitely something they haven't done before. Next we have the Olympic theme song, Survival. Need I say more? It was the theme song for the Olympics...I mean, come on people. It's one of my favorites on the album, especially with the Prelude before Survival.
You have the song, Animal, which sounds like something out of the Radiohead library, with their 5/4 time signature and multitude of electronic sounds. Explorers is great and reminds me of the song they did called Soldier's Poem, except a little more in your face. Big Freeze is probably the song that I have skipped the most on this album. It's great and has a great beat with lyrics, except the song after it is so much better!
Save Me and Liquid State are two songs the bassist Chris Wolstenholme wrote and it gives the album a break from the Bellamy led sounds to a more different approach with Wolstenholme leading. These songs are supposed to be about Chris' past struggles with alcoholism. It is definitely a change of pace on the album and it shows that Bellamy isn't the only one creating masterful hits. Hopefully, Wolstenholme's tunes will be performed on the road, as they deserve to be showcased.
The last two songs, one which was another single they released, and the other being a postlude for the entire album, makes the latter half of The 2nd Law complete. With Unsustainable, you have a dub step song. When I say dub step, I don't mean one person behind a computer messing around. I mean, strings, bass, guitar, chorus, and drums coming together to make a dub step song. If you don't believe me, listen to it. The beginning has strings, brass, and chorus building for a few minutes to make a good intro to the jam filled dub step rock that is about to happen. When you have the dub step come in, like I said earlier, it is not a computer. You can tell the drums, bass, and guitar created a live, instrumental sounded version of a dub step song. Very interesting if you break it all down and it is more complicated than you think. The final song, Isolated System, is a chill song that puts you down slowly off your high you just got after listening to the entire album. It is warm, piano filled, yet has a beat that keeps you wanting more. Such a great way to end an album.
With The 2nd Law being Muses' 6th studio album, I ranked this one as the third best album they have done. The rankings I give all their albums are as follows:
1. Black Holes and Revelations
2. Absolution
3. The 2nd Law
4. Origin of Symmetry
5. The Resistance
6. Showbiz
I will be attending their concert, in the pit, March 10th, 2013 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I will give you a recap of the show and how the songs sound like live compared to in a studio. Thanks for reading The Dugout and please comment below on your thoughts of The 2nd Law!
Peace and Love!
D
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