Renting Music 4 - The Shins & Muse

Part 1 - Introduction and First Batch

Part 2 - Chvrches and The Pixies

Part 3 - Parliment and Metallica

Part 4 - The Shins and Muse

Part 5 - Mustache! and 3 Minute Hero

Keeping with the tradition of “one artist I’ve heard of and one I haven’t”, I’m taking a crack at a different Muse album, Will of the People.  My album of choice from them before was Supermassive Black Holes (EDIT: The album is called Black Holes and Revalations), so it’ll be interesting to see how this differs.  As for The Shins, I have Chutes Too Narrow picked out for my first real exposure.  We’ll start with that and see where it goes.

Chutes Too Narrow by The Shins

I think the biggest thing I can compare this too, in this series anyways, so far, is that they remind me of a mixture of The Mountain Goats and Cloud Cult.  I think I don’t have a huge capacity for so many of these semi-acoustic artists that I’ve been checking out.  Something about this album through the first four tracks didn’t do much for me, but Saint Simon actually gave me something to at least hook into.  Specifically, this reminded me a bit of some like, 70’s light rock you’d hear interspersed between something like Foreigner and ZZ Top at 3 PM on Saturdays.  Pink Bullets is a straight up country song, which wasn’t completely unwelcome, but a bit of a surprise.  OK maybe not, but one of the backing guitar sounds a lot like a steel guitar often used in country music and I have an automatic response to it.  Grew up listening to a lot of country music in the 90s.

This album didn’t hit right for me, so it’s going to fare pretty poorly.  I think the biggest damnation of it was me thinking “I wish I was listening to Bleed Out instead.”.

Will of the People by Muse

Will of the People has a strong start here. A really bouncing rocking track.

So here’s how I know that I’m already vibing with this album. Through the first two tracks, I have a feeling in my chest as if I’m suppressing something that wants to burst out, despite never hearing these songs before. I am bouncing along with the upbeat Will of the People, and grooving with the more… 80s? feeling Compliance. Very front and center, sharp, synth cords for the opening. It has a lot of feeling of someone in the past going “This is what music will sound like in 2050”.

Moving from there, Liberation feels like Queen. This is Arena Rock-ass rock. Won’t Stand Down has these really fun, vocally, triplets in the verses so each verse feels like a rat-ta-ta-tat type rhythm. This leads into this bigger sweeping chorus, and the effect on the vocals reminds me a bit of their Hysteria.

Ghosts (How Can I Move On) is a ballad-ass-ballad. Some Coldplay shit. Just a repeating piano riff with accentuated bass notes on the piano. It’s fine.

The opening of You Make Me Feel Like It’s Halloween rules. It’s this organ-y bit that feels like it’s straight out of a halloween classic, then leads to a cool as hell synth for a few measures. They kick back in in unison for the chorus and it all just comes together with the airy, light falsetto of the vocals.

Kill or Be Killed and Verona slid right off me, but Verona has bits that reminded me of a mix of like, some Devin Townsend Project stuff crossed with some dark synth stuff I’ve heard of in cyberpunk stuff.

Euphoria is an upbeat boppy tune. Despite my total exposure to Muse being fairly limited, I am noticing a few sounds they love to use. They have this soft fuzzy vocal effect that shows up in Won’t Stand Down and one of the guitar tones used in this reminds me of Knights of Cydonia. I know this is a greatest hits album, inasmuch that it’s referencing their past rather than just rereleasing songs, but it’s interesting to see these common threads. We Are Fucking Fucked, the last track has another air of familiarity that I can’t place at this second. It’s alright.

All in all, I had a lot of fun with this one. Some average, but some good, so ranking this is going to be tricky. I think I want to start introducing some backcatalog stuff too just to realy pump these numbers up, or if there are weeks when I don’t get new stuff from the library.

Ranking

Parenthesis indicate position change since last post

  1. Cassette Beasts OST - Joel Baylis (0)
  2. ELO Greatest Hits - ELO (0)
  3. Bleed Out - The Mountain Goats (0)
  4. Every Open Eye - Chvrches (0)
  5. Blood Sugar Sex Magik - Red Hot Chili Peppers (0)
  6. Signals - Rush (0)
  7. Chocolate City - Parliament (+1)
  8. Will of the People - Muse
  9. Superunknown - Soundgarden (-2)
  10. Fragile - Yes (-1)
  11. Master of Puppets - Metallica (-1)
  12. Best of Big Bands - Various Artists (0)
  13. Bossanova - The Pixies (-2)
  14. Combat Rock - The Clash (-1)
  15. Chutes Too Narrow - The Shins
  16. Aurora Borealis - Cloud Cult (-2)

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