Track Listing

1. New Born
2. Bliss
3. Space Dementia
4. Hyper Music
5. Plug In Baby
6. Citizen Erased
7. Micro Cuts
8. Screenager
9. Dark Shines
10. Feeling Good
11. Megalomania

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #122 in Music
• Released on: 2003-08-27
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Enhanced

Amazon.co.uk Review
Pomposity, bombast, pretension and prog-rock: they're four crimes that blight the landscape of modern music and Origin Of Symmetry--the second record by Teignmouth angst-rockers Muse--is guilty of every single one. But the truly astonishing thing about this record is the way it twists every one of these cardinal musical sins into spectacularly silly and starkly individual strengths. Where their debut album Showbiz was rightly dismissed as little more than Radiohead-lite, here Muse sound defiantly like their own band: on "New Born", they're torn somewhere between the purity of front man Matt Bellamy's angelic vocal tones and the corruption of a huge, dirty, distorted bass riff that electrifies the sound into crackling life; on the fraught, operatic "Bliss", they sound like an unholy--but very welcome--cross between synth-heavy Krautrock legends Tangerine Dream and youthful choirboy angst-peddlers JJ72; and even a wonderfully dippy take on the Nina Simone-popularised jazz standard "Feeling Good" is carried off with the requisite deadpan countenance. Bellamy's impassioned voice, in particular, is on spectacular form, soaring skywards until it cracks into a beautiful falsetto reminiscent of Jeff Buckley's greatest vocal moments. So gloriously overblown, it deserves to be huge--Origin Of Symmetry is a fascinating, flamboyant and satisfyingly individual album. --Louis Pattison

CD Description
'Origin Of Symmetry' is a lush, artfully arranged album of epic, heady rock complete with electronics, swirling guitars, baroque keyboard embellishments, and dramatic vocals whichdrew comparisons to Radiohead on its release. In addition to their grand sonic canvases, Muse have always had a way with a melodic hook, displayed perfectly on this second full-length album.

Customer Reviews

VAN DER GRAAF FOR THE NEW DECADE
I heard this album by accident when my 13 year old daughter brought it home, and I was impressed enough to go out and buy my own copy. I have to say (with affection) that it's wasted on her, and I'm not sure there are many other teenagers around who will grasp why Muse are so important. In fact you probably have to be a 40-something like me to fully appreciate who their influences have been and what the young band has done with them.

The trouble with Muse is that they make the creation of superb art rock look so easy that most listeners will take it for granted. Unless you've been around a few years and listened to a few other bands' attempts to create this sort of music, then you may fail to appreciate the unique mix of creative talent, inspiration, sheer hard work, and encyclopaedic knowledge of rock history that must have gone into this project.

Sadly, the only influence most reviewers on this site have spotted has been Radiohead. That's fair enough up to a point. Matt Bellamy sounds a bit like Thom Yorke on some songs, and Muse owe Radiohead an even more important debt: It's only because Radiohead carved out a mass market for this kind of art-rock back in the late 90's that there is an opening for new bands like Muse now. However, it is unfair to write Muse off as copyists. On the contrary, they have in some respects surpassed Radiohead at their best, matching the sonic ambition of Radiohead's later work without sacrificing the melodic sweep and the compelling hooks that made "The Bends" so listenable. What's more, Bellamy's voice is a considerably more flexible and emotionally powerful instrument than Yorke's, and embraces far older and deeper influences going right back to the late '60's. Van der Graaf Generator is the most obvious influence, but there's also a heavy sprinkling of King Crimson, at least a nod to middle-period U2, a hint of Japan and others if you listen for them. It's all very British, but encyclopaedic for all that.

The key structural difference between Muse and that first wave of prog bands is a welcome one: Muse have learned to say in a four-minute song what some of the seventies prog-rockers needed a 20 minute mini-concerto for. They have some way to go before they outgun the older bands for sheer musical virtuosity, but even that is no bad thing. At least this never pretends to be anything but rock - a boundary that some of the old prog bands came dangerously close to crossing - and they have all the time and talent in the world to refine their art.

So what will you hear? Among a wealth of styles, you'll get delicate baroque-style keyboard arpeggios, some thundering ostinato bass lines, crunching splintery guitar, rock solid percussion, and possibly the most awesome, spine-tingling rock vocalising you've ever heard. Ultimately, it must be said, the band has so far broken little new ground. They seem to have been concentrating so far on drawing their influences together and weaving them into whole cloth for the new decade. But they are still amazingly young for this sort of mature work, and the intelligence and awesome technique they have brought to the task promises to propel them to the front rank.

excellent little album, your mum might like it
i didn't really get into muse when they first came out although i liked their singles, but i thought this was a vital purchase, and it was. it's not at all indi music like coldplay, and only nods towards rdiohead in bits but not as much as showbiz could have. i love the prog-rock influences like King Crimson because it makes prog cool again. muse don't care about being pretentious they just make excellent songs with strong bass and experimental guitar and keyboards, and mr.bellamy's voice is stunning. i love the beautiful keyboards on bliss and the latin/reggae vibe on darkshines. two of the songs (hyper music and citizen erased)sound just like a rage against the machine riff but it's turned into muses own style just like the nina simmone cover 'feeling good'. it's clever, interesting and different, i'd recommend it to people who like radiohead's heavier moments and the structure of tools songs or anyone with an open mind. my mum likes it but it just shows how cool she is. buy it if you want something new and exciting this year.

"To sounds like forks scratched on a plate..."
Forget their debut album, and the incessant comparisons with Radiohead (although I don't think they were that similar), this album will blow you away, and probably your entire house. Almost every track is an excellent example of how to mix classical influence with all-out rock.

From the maniacally fearsome opener New Born there's little breathing space as each track emerges from its lair of feedback to assault your senses. Bliss, the new single gives way to the organised chaos of Space Dementia, a mammoth piece which threatens to 'destroy this world'. And after hearing it, it's easy to see why. Then comes the defiant Hyper Music, returning to the intense riffing of the opening track and adding some excited bass. Soon after is Plug In Baby, with it's tense riff and bouncing bassline, the introduction of which has to be heard live to be fully appreciated. Then, Muse define the word 'epic' with Citizen Erased, a 7+ minute opus which still can't prepare you for the rending apocalyptic scream of Micro Cuts. A track which would probably beat Space Dementia's boast and destroy the whole universe; a musical black hole perhaps...

Then things calm down a little with Screenager, brimming with claustrophobic angst, but soon pick up with Darkshines' confused atmospheric rock. Feeling Good, the Nina Simone cover, manages to retain the sexiness of the original while giving it that triumphant edge Muse manage so well on this CD. To finish things off, the grand, deliciously overblown Megalomania with its church organ just about sums up what this album is about and provides what can easily be put into the 'finale' drawer.

I don't think I've heard any album quite so desperate to escape from the CD and start an interplanetary war, but then its to Matt Bellamy, Chris Wolstenholme and Dom Howard's credit that that's what they've made. A fully deserved five stars.