Your Review
Sign In to rate and review
CRITIC REVIEWS
92
Muse fans will have a hard time being disappointed by "The 2nd Law," and rookies have a new perfect place to jump in.
80
This is less an album, and more like a mixtape filled with mini meditations of musical movements.
80
What Muse have done is re-establish themselves as a respected British institution by being fun.
80
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.
60
The 13 tracks lack some focus and cohesion, weakening what should be a limitless, quasi-spiritual slice of rock and roll transcendence.
60
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
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.
55
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
What was a forgiveable indulgence on previous albums now just seems to highlight the absense of new ideas.
43
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
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
Their genre-hopping, ostensibly the signifier of their artistic maturity, is in actuality the most concise description of their fatal flaw.
15
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.
It's really not as bad as some are making it out to be. It's still got the bangers expected from Muse, but it's still a dip in quality for sure. And it could 100% have benefited from getting rid of the dubstep elements.
Favorite jams: Panic Station, Animals, Survival
Lest Favorite: The 2nd Law: Unsustainable
Favorite jams: Panic Station, Animals, Survival
Lest Favorite: The 2nd Law: Unsustainable
An album that certainly has potential and some really good instrumentation however it also feels unfocused and can be rather annoying at times.
Best Track: Explorers
Worst Track: Liquid State
Best Track: Explorers
Worst Track: Liquid State
in this album youll find some of the cheesiest music Muse have ever made, only outcheesed by The Resistance and probably Simulation Theory when that comes out. while this album does have a bunch of good songs, theyre scattered and not many. this album's lows are some of the worst moments in Muse's career, not to mention that terrible failed attempt of dubstep they made towards the end of the album which made the score of it like 15 points lower than it could have been. this is not a good alum, ... read more
2009's The Resistance was barely a tolerable hiccup in experimenting with modern trends at the time, but with release of The 2nd Law and other singles around, it was easy to assume from most that Muse have made it to the point of no return with not really an album, but what seems to be more like an instance of the band covering whatever has seem to come up on their playlist on shuffle - a hellish spectrum of genres and decades, viciously blended into one project.
It's always admirable when a ... read more
It's always admirable when a ... read more
END OF YEAR LISTS
| #22 | / | Gigwise |
| #46 | / | Rolling Stone |
MISC LISTS
| #45 | / | Drowned in Sound |
Track List
- Supremacy
- Madness
- Panic Station
- Prelude
- Survival
- Follow Me
- Animals
- Explorers
- Big Freeze
- Save Me
- Liquid State
- The 2nd Law: Unsustainable
- The 2nd Law: Isolated System
In Library (37)
Added on: August 10, 2012
