The Resistance

The forthcoming new album from Muse entitled ‘The Resistance’ will be release in September 14 but to entice the fans including myself, the award-winning band has unveiled some small details about the artwork and two tracks.

As you can see in this post here, the new album cover looks great. The bold use of colours and geometrical shapes works well and it reminds of the band’s debut album ‘Origin of Symmetry’ with its strong use of abstract shapes.

The first track taken from the new album is the ‘United States of Eurasia’, though the idea behind releasing parts of the track was certainly an interesting concept.

It required the diehard fans to search for special USB sticks in a worldwide treasure hunt.

By locating each of the sticks from the ‘agents’ in Berlin, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Moscow, Paris and Dubai the fans get to ‘unlock’ new segments to the song.

Each USB stick contains a code, which must be entered at Ununitedeurasia.muse.mu and once solving the cryptic puzzle, fans get to experience parts of the song.

Clues as to the whereabouts of these USB sticks were release via the site and it was down to the fans to find them!

It took just a week for all six USBs to be located and the end result is a grand and Queen-like tune from the Teignmouth-based band.

Vocalist and guitarist Matthew Bellamy reveals the song to be inspired by “a book called The Grand Chessboard by Zbigniew Brzezinski,” explaining that “Brzezinski has the viewpoint that the Eurasian landmass, i.e. Europe, Asia and the Middle East, needs to be controlled by America to secure the oil supply.” Bellamy goes on to suggest that the song is also influenced by George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four.

You can hear the complete track here with the ending piano sonata “Collateral Damage” featuring the sounds of playing children, a jet fighter and perhaps a missile.

It certainly is a new musical direction from Muse after listening to this song!

As for the second track ‘Uprising’ which stuck to the convention way of promoting it – via radio stations – it feels like a dance record with a hint of the Doctor Who theme tune!

In fact, Matthew Bellamy described ‘Uprising’ as “like a heavy-rock take on Goldfrapp,” adding that “It has football-style chanting, with all of [the band] going ‘Oi!’ in time with the snare drum […] in protest at the banking situation.”

Click here to listen to the track thanks to YouTube. Details of releasing this as a download via the popular iTunes music store can be seen here.

After hearing these two excellent tracks, I am not surprise that amount of eagerness and excitement from fans to see Muse perform live again. After that amazing Wembley show two years ago, the popular rock band will certainly be victorious when the new Resistance worldwide tour starts next month.

As for me, I cannot wait to see them live at London’s O2 arena at the former home of the Millennium Dome. Getting those elusive tickets was a real nightmare but I still managed to score a pair for my mate and myself to see them live in November.

Roll on September 14 for The Resistance!