Muse: The Resistance

Scenario 1: Vast aerial vehicles fly overhead. They are known as 'vanships'. Despite their aplomb for flight, these vehicles creak with purpose. Powered by Victorian, industrial revolution-era technology, they are vast swathes of brass and chrome. Unwieldy, yet elegant; retro, yet futuristic in their design.

Upon these ships walk men adorned in the same kind of technology. Goggles with brass rims, leather trench-coats which billow in the wind. Weapons and gadgets litter their bodies, looking twice as big as they - by our reckoning - need to be.

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Scenario 2: A lone man rappels down an vertical tunnel, a tunnel which leads him deeper into the side of a gargantuan mountain. Instead of bleak, time-stained walls though, they shimmer with artificial light, spewing forth beams which bounce off the silver-coloured, reinforced metal walls. An alarm sounds in the distance and red illumination begins to sporadically pour into the now widening chasm.

The man walks into a surprisingly modern-looking room, decked with Swedish furniture. An office chair stands in the middle of the room, a room plastered with display screen and buttons upon its four walls. The chair spins around until its occupant is in full view. He lets out a relaxed sigh and utters the words, "I've been expecting you, Mr. Bond".

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Scenario 3: Myriads upon myriads of people surround a colossal stage. Circular in form, above the stage stands a dignified assemblage of metal supporting enormous video screen, forming, alongside the stage, a relatively small circle in the middle of the vast room. The masses surround this circular stage from all sides.

A familiar face ascends up to the stage from somewhere beneath. He should be familiar, yet your mind - present with you amidst the throngs of people - tells you it cannot be: it's not possible. With an explosion of incendiary devices, the man screams "It's good to back! This one is called 'We Are the Champions!"

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In these three situations, perhaps The Resistance would feel like appropriate music to set the scene. In the real world though, it's clear that the anchor which once grounded Muse to our reality has buckled under the immense force of lift, shattering it into pieces and sending the band spiralling upwards beyond our grasp.

Your ability to accept these larger-than-life, almost pantomimic elements will be the largest singular factor in your reaction to this, the fifth studio album by the Devon-born titans of experimental rock.

We're kicked off on our journey by "Uprising", a song which can summed up by imaging that Muse decided to cover a Goldfrapp cover-version of Depeche Mode's Personal Jesus, only they couldn't actually remember the song properly. "Unnatural Selection" similarly is the band's modern-day take on their very own track "New Born", which added pomposity.

There are the familiar Muse elements of course. The effects-strewn guitars, the hulking bass-lines, the pianos etudes, the operatic vocals, the whirling arpeggios: morphed beyond recognition. This time though, they are soaked to the very core in outlandish, ostentatious grandiloquence.

This description holds up until the finale, an epic exercise in symphonic neoclassicism. Thirteen minutes long, spread across three distinct tracks under the banner "Exogenesis" it is indeed a brave venture into the under-explored territories of the rock domain. It's grandiose success in its aims is sadly to the detriment of the rest of the album. So prodigious is this three-part event, the songs which have come before begin to look almost childish in their nature, as if a young wunderkind had been left unsupervised upon his piano to play until his tutor returned and returned his focus to the task of making glorious music.

If Muse ever wish to expand this style into something broader, there will be a much deserved mark of 10/10 waiting for them.

As it is though, on occasions such as "United States of Eurasia's" launch pad of 'There can be only one...'  or the preposterous backing vocals of "Resistance" as they drawl out 'It could be wrong, could be wrong...' and many other various moments, it's increasingly difficult to suppress the giggles and restrain the laughter at the absurdity of what you are hearing.

Equally so for the vague murmurings about revolution. We doubt there has ever been an overthrowing of government set to the soundtrack of a Southerner singing 'Rise up and take the power back' ("Uprising") in a strained falsetto. The most even Rage Against the Machine managed was latent douchebaggery from their fans. You want a revolution, start your own Project Mayhem, organise your fans into an army, blow crap up. This lip-service to revolt feels less like a genuine political statement and more like pandering to MTV-generation, safely confined rebellion. The album may as well come with a free voucher for Hot Topic headed by the title "Show your parents who's boss for 50% less this holiday season".

There's no arguing though, The Resistance is a behemoth of a record, chocked to the mills with stratospheric choruses, B-movie atmosphere and enough hooks to make Peter Pan wet himself.

Absolution will remain the apotheosis of what Muse are capable of, but this one will likely stand close by. A little too adolescent for its own good on occasion perhaps, but when they hit their stride, Muse are impossible to catch.