Matt Bellamy’s voice aside, Muse have finally absorbed their Radiohead influences. Now they’ve taken Yes as a new template, whether knowingly or not. It’s a natural development for the classical music-loving Bellamy, especially on “Blackout”, where swiftly fluttering guitars and massed orchestral strings interbreed for a few seconds in one of the few fruitful rock-classical hybrids, and the “Paranoid Android”-scale “Stockholm Syndrome”. Exactly what Jon Anderson and co were shooting for 30 years back, only inevitably a certain muddiness of purpose and melody hamper them. And please, no Tales From Topographic Oceans.
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