The 2nd Law

Muse - The 2nd Law
Critic Score
Based on 33 reviews
2012 Ratings: #978 / 1118
User Score
2012 Rank: #432
Liked by 91 people
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CRITIC REVIEWS

92
Billboard
Muse fans will have a hard time being disappointed by "The 2nd Law," and rookies have a new perfect place to jump in.
80
Drowned in Sound

This is less an album, and more like a mixtape filled with mini meditations of musical movements. 

80
The Arts Desk

It's purely about the force and garishness of the ideas: they are just more bigger, brasher, bolder elements to add to the stew, just like the slithering dubstep bass synths on the title track or the skyscraper-sized lightshows in Muse's live performance.

80
The Telegraph
Muse’s rather absurd spaceship may be welded together from bits of other acts – but it still flies.
80
Uncut
Muse redeem high-camp absurdity with a genius for sumptuous arrangements, mighty pop hooks and irresistible melodrama.
80
The Guardian

No one goes to see a blockbuster for its profundity and deep characterisation. They go for the stunts and the special effects, both of which The 2nd Law delivers.

80
NME

What Muse have done is re-establish themselves as a respected British institution by being fun. 

70
Classic Rock

The lack of Matt Bellamy’s histrionic warbles here seems to mute Muse, but it proves them to be a band with no fixed limits or methods, and The 2nd Law finds them mid-evolutionary leap.

70
Rolling Stone
It’s bad news that makes for some fine spectacle.
70
FasterLouder

The 2nd Law is a catch-22 release: It explores some daring new sounds, yet seems to base itself in radio-friendly tracks that mimic current trends. Progressive yet conservative, philosophical yet everyday, Muse’s dynamism is hard to deny.

60
The Irish Times

Overall, The 2nd Law feels like an incoherent vortex of ideas, but at least they have the spaceballs to be totally ridiculous on a grand scale.

60
The Observer
Bellamy is not blind to the contradictions of his band's attempts continually to ramp the ludicrousness up to 11; endless growth is, of course, unsustainable. But for now they remain pretty comfortable with the idea of obscene over-inflation. So should we.
60
AllMusic

On their sixth album, The 2nd Law, they continue to shake things up, diving deeper into the electronic rabbit hole as they experiment with a sound that's less reliant on Matthew Bellamy's guitar heroics, resulting in an album that's a bit of a mixed bag.

60
God Is in the TV

The 2nd Law is preposterous, hearing it chanting of triumphs is pathetic. Muse never needed to enumerate them when the real triumphs were rolling in. Heard victories are sweet, but those unmentioned are classier.

60
No Ripcord

The 2nd Law is a love-it-or-hate-it record. It contains some of the best songs Muse has done in recent memory, but also the worst. 

60
Consequence of Sound

The 13 tracks lack some focus and cohesion, weakening what should be a limitless, quasi-spiritual slice of rock and roll transcendence.

58
Entertainment Weekly
Leave the rock operas to other Olympians; like elite sprinters, Muse are best when they’re surging straight ahead.
55
Pitchfork

The problem is that it's not any fun at all, and the "message" feels like an unnecessary overcompensation for the campy streak that draws people into this kind of comic-book stuff in the first place.

50
musicOMH

What was a forgiveable indulgence on previous albums now just seems to highlight the absense of new ideas.

43
A.V. Club

What the band has created on The 2nd Law is the musical equivalent of a massive-budget action film: men blowing shit up just because they can, a forced romantic subplot, and above all, the ego required to believe one band can save the world.

40
SPIN
Muse are (and forever may be) too devoted to a micro-managed version of Thom Yorke’s dystopian despair. After all, they just made an entire album about entropy. How totally fitting.
40
The 405

You were delusional if you thought for one moment that this album would be anything other than what it is: a bunch of friends making the music they've wanted to for a while. 

40
PopMatters

Their genre-hopping, ostensibly the signifier of their artistic maturity, is in actuality the most concise description of their fatal flaw.

30
The Needle Drop
On its sixth studio album, Muse stretches themselves across more genres than ever, bringing pop and even the sounds of dubstep into the fold with their usual symphonic rock tendencies.
15
Crack Magazine
There is clearly some grand collective statement present, but more often than not it’s thematically rooted in well-worn cliches and tenuous sloganeering. But oh my, does it all come together in the calamitous filmic closing suite.
10
Under the Radar
You can say “haters gonna hate” all you like, but when an album is both as precious and lazily tossed off as this, they have every right to.
1
Beats Per Minute

[Epic concert story based on The 2nd Law and its tracks]

BaddieBaphomet
40

Examining: Muse
Part 6 - The 2nd Law

So, I think now is the time to ask the question I’ve been hinting towards since this series’s beginning, the one that everyone comes back to whenever they’re discussing the trio of stadium rockers:

When did Muse become bad?

It’s a question that has been debated since 2001 and one music listeners will continue to debate long after the group inevitably disbands. Maybe you hated the pop tracks Muse started working into “Black ... read more

PipePanic
60

(Band Binge: Muse Part Six of Seven)

Here we are. The worst Muse album. By far. My GOD.

Hooooooly shit what happened here? After the pretty disappointing Resistance album, Muse fans were hoping, preying, PLEADING for a either a return of form or some sort of comeback towards a more tight and interesting sound, or a push towards the more expansive, grand and breathtaking moments from The Resistance (i.e Exogenisis). Either way, people didn't want...what ever the fuck this was.

The 2nd Law is ... read more

depechemode4lif
78

This surprised me. While this album has similarities with the last one, they improve upon every front with mostly satisfying results. I feel like overall this album is much more orchestral and explorative than it's more symphonic predecessor. The more electronic and synth inspired songs actually sound pretty good for the most part even if they are a little dated. The orchestral more ambient and mellow tracks are often a beautiful touch. And even some of the filler tracks and few symphonic ones ... read more

denkirena
55

the definition of mid. They lost their identity as a great rock band here

Scientificman
87

The 2nd law is muse at their experimental. Most of the songs on this album are brilliant but there are a few that way it down. The opening 3 songs are a great way to open the album as they show 3 different styles of the album before being picked up by the explosive survival as it roars to life. Animals and Follow me are also great before we hit the first roadblock of the album. Explorers, it feels like disney music and it feels so out of place even for this album.

The album picks back up with ... read more

MattBlack
76

It's weird, but I dig it.

There are some bangers ("Madness" / "Panic Station"), some underrated gems ("Explorers" / "Animals"), some odd ones that I'm on the fence about ("Follow Me" / "Unsustainable"), and some outright boring tracks ("Big Freeze" / "Save Me").

A mixed bag, but an entertaining one at that. I'd rather be caught off-guard by zany stuff than put to sleep by formulaic songwriting, so all in all I'm ... read more

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Track List

1Supremacy
4:55
85
2Madness
4:39
76
3Panic Station
3:04
83
4Prelude
0:57
70
5Survival
4:17
80
6Follow Me
3:50
53
7Animals
4:22
87
8Explorers
5:46
74
9Big Freeze
4:39
66
10Save Me
5:08
57
11Liquid State
3:02
68
12The 2nd Law: Unsustainable
3:48
53
13The 2nd Law: Isolated System
4:59
64
Total Length: 53 minutes

Year End Lists

#22/Gigwise
#46/Rolling Stone
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Added on: August 10, 2012