‘Muse Fills US Black Hole of clone bands with new Revelations’
Having heard a prerelease of this album, I'm convinced that ‘Black Holes and Revelations’ is, simply put, the album that can explode Muse to the top in the US!

Muse is in that deliriously intoxicating chrysalis stage: hugely popular in the UK, yet barely scratching the periphery of their potential in the US. In the UK, they handily sold out a 30,000 seat venue at the end of 2005, won countless awards, were voted best live band, and were the subject of endless online discussions of ‘who’s for Coldplay and who’s for Muse’, not unlike the comparisons of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones in the 60s!

In the US, another story. Starting out primarily as a critical favorite, yet the slow build of their popularity shot up when their single from ‘Absolution’, ‘Time is Running Out’ got them in heavy rotation, and a favorite on Fuse and MTV.

The US is in a black hole of clone bands waiting for something fresh and original that this album can fill. A growing spring of eloquent ‘cosmic keyboard’ bands like Canada’s Wolf Parade and Texarkana’s own Pilotdrift is stoking the fires in the US for the exhilarating complex electronic sound of Matt Bellamy’s keyboards that explode like a shattering starbust satisfying thirsty ears in ‘Take a Bow’ (imagine Emerson, Lake and Palmer on a new planet); with the rise of guitar riff heavy Wolfmother, the US is ripe for the elaborate, searing incomparable riffs of Matt’s guitar on ‘Assassin’; and with the recent touring of Depeche Mode, the US has got to be pumped for the lush rich landscape of Muse’s popular favorite from B H and R, track #4, ‘Map of the Problematic’. Not since Queen, have such fully woven and layered worlds been created in song after song in one album, combined with such breakneck rhythms and searing vocals.

Muse shows off their shining virtuosity lifted from the now classic Absolution sound right from the beginning of B H & R’s track #1, ‘Take a Bow’. They take that sound and build on it to new dimensions. Rather than abandoning it, and doing a left turn, they use it as a foundation for a whole second level, third level, and skylight! Black Holes and Revelations is simply an album too rich, too complex for just a few listenings.

Track #3, the first single,‘Supermassive Black Hole’ is a bare-bones funk Prince inspired song, compared to Britney Spears. The chorus will stick in your mind like funkified glue. It is such a change from the full soundscapes that existing fans are getting whiplash from the shock. Actually, it is more akin to the sultry, emotionally seeped ‘Time is Running Out’ from 'Absolution'. In the 1990’s it was Madonna’s Maverick Records that first brought Muse to the US, so maybe it is fitting that the pop funk sound she is known for is seeping through the single, ‘musetated’ into a dark mysterious world with the distinctive Muse twist.

Track #6, ‘Invincible’ starts out with guitars blazing and rages you through a triumphant joyous ride.

On track #7, 'Assassins', the searing guitar and cavalcading keyboards surpass their previous album’s forays in complete abandon into a wall of intricate genius licks, that will leave you breathless like white knuckling through a sparkling roller coaster ride.

On track #11, Knights of Cydonia’, Muse charges head on in a completely new Tex Mex sound that is a great showcase for the drumming of Dominic Howard, but that's just a small part of rapidly changing surreal sounds cape with lyrics that encourage us to fight the Power that be and refuse to be taken alive or to go quietly.





-June Caldwell

June Caldwell lives amidst drawers stuffed with an array of earplugs, clipped wristbands, and notes scrawled on ticket stubs… splitting her time between concert reviews, and doing radio airplay promotions for Indie bands at Bryan Farrish Radio Promotions. She covers the LA music scene for artrocker.com, the largest bi-weekly new music publication in the UK, and www.fly.co.uk with her shutterbug hubby Roger.

June’s always interested in Indie bands looking for promotion, and can be contacted at: junejer@gmail.com.