Andrew’s Judgmental Album Reviews: Muse – Will of the People (2022)

So I decided to stay away from the heavy metal releases this week, since next month will have quite a few, and I enjoy variety. Not the magazine…I mean…nevermind.

ANYWAY – most people should know Muse and their Spacey/Electronica/Arena Rock kind of approach to music. You can describe it so many ways, but rarely ever as bad. Much like with a lot of the bands over the last few years, I stopped following this band closely some time ago. Last album I gave a full spin was… Black Holes and Revelations – really? 2006? No, no, that makes sense. An ex of mine was into them and that was indeed around that time frame. I really need to pay attention to bands more often than once every 15 years or so.

While I deal with my existential crisis of feeling like the aughts were a few years ago, let’s just do the line up thing and get to the review.

Muse is: Matt Bellamy (guitars, lead vocals, keys), Dominic Howard (drums, percussion) & Chris Wolstenholme (bass, backing vocals)

• Artist: Muse
• Album: Will of the People (2022)
• Label: Warner Music
• Total Track Time: 37:39

Will of the People starts off like a combination of Marilyn Manson‘s Beautiful People and a stereotypical British soccer chant that we’ve heard tons of times either during sport or NXT UK episodes. Musically it has a bit of an electronic Rolling Stones vibe about it. A simple arena rock anthemic style song, catchy enough to make Gary Glitter blush. With the chorus being, “Welcome to the desecration, baby, We’ll build you right up, then we’ll tear you down, Welcome to the celebration, baby, The judges are jailed and the future is ours“, it serves very well as an opening song for the album. Also I’ve always liked the phrase “throw the baby out with the bathwater” and the fact that this uses that specific turn of phrase, it earns a bias point. Compliance is in that retro 80s synthwave vein with a little bit of the space rock sound they lean in to on occasion. Lyrically its very fitting for the last few years regarding just falling in line and giving them compliance. Something very 1984 about the start of this album. Liberation the opening verse stays in this enslaved society mindset, “Silenced, you’ll make us feel silenced, You stole the airwaves, but the air belongs to us, And violence, you’ll make us turn to violence, You’ve left us choiceless, our backs against the wall”, musically this has Queen written all over it. The gang harmonies, the slower listing piano leading into a larger climax through the verses and refrains. It has that same theatrical epic composition that should make everyone think of Queen.

Won’t Stand Down has a crazy distorted bass crunch and heaviness to this song. Instrumentally it very reminiscent of their old stuff, and not really what I was expecting since they started to steer more into the pop side even back when I listened more frequently. There is still the definitive electronica elements that no matter how heavy it gets, it still links to the Muse sound especially when those space ship keyboards kick in. Ghosts (How Can I Move On) now this is a very somber and beautiful ballad initially. I don’t expect it to change up, but this is just a ballad of loss and not being able move on. “How can I move on, When everyone I see still talks about you?, How can I move on, When all the best things I have we made together?, Here’s to letting go, But I am lost in a void with your ghost and our memories”, these are pretty poignant. It’s got to be fairly relatable for many, having trouble moving on from someone that was so ingrained in your life, everywhere and everyone is tied to them. How do you just reset and stop associating?

You Make Me Feel Like It’s Halloween while the title is kinda wordy and stupid, the song has a very interesting synth beat and pipe organ. So it gives you the ole Monster Mash stereotypical Halloween vibes, mixed with some Prince and interesting retro 80s infused riffing. Not the worst, if not just a little odd and leaves me wondering who asked for this. Kill or Be Killed while it starts off with and seems to have a definitive guitar riff that feels very Rage Against the Machine, the verses lighten the instrumentation too much to the point of the song coming off more schizophrenic. Now, that could be intentional with the paranoid kill or be killed lyrics, but sonically it really just makes the song disjointed. While I can almost praise the artistic stretch, musically it is borderline cacophonous. Verona makes the fact that it’s a Romeo and Juliet song obvious with the first line being about “poison on your lips”, this sounds like bad TV Guide Channel music or hold music when you wanted to order CDs from Columbia House. I hate every second of this, it just lingers and insists upon itself sounding like the most tryhard cringe attempt at a 14 year old penning romance for his crush.

Euphoria this album has treaded into that territory I’ve complained about for the last few years. When too many songs are about Quarantine, or can be attributed to it, it causes ear fatigue and redundancy. This song says nothing new, just does it over top of a bouncy electro pop beats. I really am zoned out during this song. It’s just pop drivel about coming out of quarantine, gag me with a spoon. We’re All Fucking Fucked while I can respect how British this title is…again…it’s about Quarantine again. I would’ve been able to tolerate their usual wannabe 1984 dystopian revolution songs, but this is taxing. The song itself is distorted and dark, but I can’t find myself caring enough. The second half of this album has fucking fucked this album.

This album has completely lost me at Kill or Be Killed, and the Halloween song didn’t do many favors. So any good favor the first half of the album created, was completely dashed. While revolution and can’t keep us down songs are cliche, they have their place, especially to rally humanity after crisis. But with the 3 worst songs at the end, and the final 2 about covid, what the hell were they thinking. If you were gonna serve up an above average few songs garnished with garbage and topped with vomit, next time just do the damn Greatest Hits album.

It started strong, peaked early like Gohan, and then disappointed me the rest of the way through; also oddly enough, like Gohan. This is the Great Saiyaman of Muse albums.

Final Judgment: 5.25/10