Your Death Creates Success–An Appreciation

It’s been almost five years (UK release) since Muse unearthed their flawless record Absolution.  Over on one of the message boards I frequent, a great deal of the members are doing their own rendition of Listmania and compiling their top 100 albums of all time.  This would turn into an ordeal for me.  Seriously, what criteria does one use to determine if record A should rank higher than record B; I dunno.  This I do know though: Absolution would fall into the top 20.  How did I stumble on that number you may ask?

The factors are endless, but let me try a few: Matthew Bellamy’s angelic voice; their consistent ability to teeter between the realm of driving rock songs and operatic epics; molding haunting piano melodies (Absolution sheet music here) seamlessly into stadium ready anthems; etc.  Which brings us to the inspiration behind my above rambling…

Absolution doesn’t contain a weakest link, not even a small blemish.  And for the longest time, my favorite tracks were “Apocalypse Please” and a song I’d play before big moments in my life: (e.g. interviews–suggest a new theme song, please) “Butterflies & Hurricanes”. Bellamy’s fancy fingerwork on the keys is what ultimately hooked me.  But then “Ruled by Secrecy” decided to stumble on my device, a few days ago, which as any MiS fan knows, is track 14–the closer.  A stringy piano melody begins to loop as Bellamy opens up with his heavenly whisper.  His voice decides to hold all the right notes in a slight falsetto laced with perhaps traces of reverb.  Regardless of the trickery used, this could be one of my favorite songs vocally speaking.  Around the three minute mark, after the slow crescendo of music and voice, the dark Rachmaninov chords kick in on the piano and this grand opera of an epic album ends as elegiacally dark and explosive as it began with “Apocalypse Please” .  Shit, top 20, after a closer like this, it should fall into my top 10.  Repress and restrain below…

Muse :: “Ruled by Secrecy”