With British alternative rock trio Muse's new (concept) album Drones becoming available worldwide today, the reviews have been pouring in, and thus far, the album has garnered a "critical acclaim" score of 81 at the review site Metacritic.
Kerrang! gave the album a perfect score, adding that it's "a claustrophobic classic that sharpens the focus of what is possible in the name of high-minded rock."
Evening Standard wrote that "Drones is the fearsome sound of Muse at their monumental best."
Rock Sound said that "Drones sees one of the UK's most ambitious rock bands returning to what they do best."
The Observer wrote that Drones is "fist-pumpingly ace, a timely restatement of the need for popular music to evoke both thought and dopamine rush."
As usual, though, not all the reviews were positive. Most of the mixed reviews made valid points each way, but there was one negative review I read which could very well go down as the worst album review ever written. It was posted by Oliver Keens at the site Timeout.com.
This individual gave the album one star out of a possible five, and wrote the following:
"It's a shame that Matt Bellamy (the band's singer and song writer) has never been to North Waziristan. If he had, he'd know first-hand how this area of Pakistan is to drones what lamps are to moths. He'd have seen how the notion of a 'surgical strike' is basically untrue, that ordinary civilians die in this part of the world. Up to 1,000 non-combatants are estimated to have died since 2004, including up to 200 children.
You can tell Matt Bellamy has never been to North Waziristan, because not a slither of this information makes it into Muse's seventh album - a record about the oh-so-trendy-and-zeitgeisty subject of drones.
'Drones' is meant to be a concept album, a story about how 'the system' and 'dark forces' indoctrinate someone into remote killing. It's a disappointing record on every level. For devoted fans, the uncomfortable truth is that they're stuck in a glam-rock rut, which - sorry Musers - Royal Blood now do with twice the urgency and zero guff. Yes, the grandiose opera meets-dubstep ambition of last LP 'The 2nd Law' has been reined in, but we're a long way from the slash-and-burn riffery of 'Plug in Baby'.
But the greatest sin of this record is that it's tactless and crass. Bellamy's supposed narrative is as dull as dog food - told with the wishy-washy flim-flam of a frothing conspiracy theorist. It lacks any insight or perspective, rather, it just seems like a cheap attempt to remake Pink Floyd's 'The Wall'. There's also something a bit masturbatory about mixing war imagery with hard-riffing rock. In the same way London has seen an explosion of bankers clutching copies of 'The Wolf of Wall Street', you can sadly picture a gun nut or Andy McNab reader totally getting off to this.
Most worrying is that it does the discussion around drones a disservice. Remote killing isn't new - it's happened since armies stopped fighting with swords. What is remarkable is the total lack of accountability over their use. Yet Muse are so out of their box, they throw a sample of JFK rather than the actual, living president who has sanctioned more drones than anyone: Barack Obama. We used to moan that musicians didn't write about politics anymore. Based on this effort, maybe that's for the best."
Really? No mention of the music? That'd be like a film critic reviewing American Beauty and spending four or five paragraphs talking about their personal life in suburbia, but failing to mention the performances of Kevin Spacey, Annette Bening, the plot or storyline, music, or direction.
Using this writer's words against him, his review is "disappointing on every level." Given the review, this individual hasn't been able to provide enough evidence to showcase he even listened to the record. People often times read film or album reviews to garner a better sense of the quality of the work and if it might appeal to them enough to check out the movie at a theatre or purchase the record. This review provides no such information. All it does is showcase that the album's concept touched a nerve of the author's, he hated it from the first time he heard about it, and felt the need to tell the world about it. In other words, he was being quite "tactless and crass." If he listened to and hated the record, so be it, but the least he can do is provide detailed enough information about the songs on the album so readers can garner a better sense about it and whether or not they might like to check it out, as opposed to going on a seemingly never-ending rant which leaves readers scratching their heads and wondering what in the world they just read.
My grade for this album review: 0 out of 5 stars - It's never a good thing when, after reading an album review, the reader is still asking the questions: "So, what does it sound like?," "What are the best songs on the album?," and "What are the names of any songs on the album?" This review is a fail of epic proportions and I hope Oliver Keens gets called out for it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drones_%28Muse_album%29
http://www.timeout.com/london/music/muse-drones-album-review
Kerrang! gave the album a perfect score, adding that it's "a claustrophobic classic that sharpens the focus of what is possible in the name of high-minded rock."
Evening Standard wrote that "Drones is the fearsome sound of Muse at their monumental best."
Rock Sound said that "Drones sees one of the UK's most ambitious rock bands returning to what they do best."
The Observer wrote that Drones is "fist-pumpingly ace, a timely restatement of the need for popular music to evoke both thought and dopamine rush."
As usual, though, not all the reviews were positive. Most of the mixed reviews made valid points each way, but there was one negative review I read which could very well go down as the worst album review ever written. It was posted by Oliver Keens at the site Timeout.com.
This individual gave the album one star out of a possible five, and wrote the following:
"It's a shame that Matt Bellamy (the band's singer and song writer) has never been to North Waziristan. If he had, he'd know first-hand how this area of Pakistan is to drones what lamps are to moths. He'd have seen how the notion of a 'surgical strike' is basically untrue, that ordinary civilians die in this part of the world. Up to 1,000 non-combatants are estimated to have died since 2004, including up to 200 children.
You can tell Matt Bellamy has never been to North Waziristan, because not a slither of this information makes it into Muse's seventh album - a record about the oh-so-trendy-and-zeitgeisty subject of drones.
'Drones' is meant to be a concept album, a story about how 'the system' and 'dark forces' indoctrinate someone into remote killing. It's a disappointing record on every level. For devoted fans, the uncomfortable truth is that they're stuck in a glam-rock rut, which - sorry Musers - Royal Blood now do with twice the urgency and zero guff. Yes, the grandiose opera meets-dubstep ambition of last LP 'The 2nd Law' has been reined in, but we're a long way from the slash-and-burn riffery of 'Plug in Baby'.
But the greatest sin of this record is that it's tactless and crass. Bellamy's supposed narrative is as dull as dog food - told with the wishy-washy flim-flam of a frothing conspiracy theorist. It lacks any insight or perspective, rather, it just seems like a cheap attempt to remake Pink Floyd's 'The Wall'. There's also something a bit masturbatory about mixing war imagery with hard-riffing rock. In the same way London has seen an explosion of bankers clutching copies of 'The Wolf of Wall Street', you can sadly picture a gun nut or Andy McNab reader totally getting off to this.
Most worrying is that it does the discussion around drones a disservice. Remote killing isn't new - it's happened since armies stopped fighting with swords. What is remarkable is the total lack of accountability over their use. Yet Muse are so out of their box, they throw a sample of JFK rather than the actual, living president who has sanctioned more drones than anyone: Barack Obama. We used to moan that musicians didn't write about politics anymore. Based on this effort, maybe that's for the best."
Really? No mention of the music? That'd be like a film critic reviewing American Beauty and spending four or five paragraphs talking about their personal life in suburbia, but failing to mention the performances of Kevin Spacey, Annette Bening, the plot or storyline, music, or direction.
Using this writer's words against him, his review is "disappointing on every level." Given the review, this individual hasn't been able to provide enough evidence to showcase he even listened to the record. People often times read film or album reviews to garner a better sense of the quality of the work and if it might appeal to them enough to check out the movie at a theatre or purchase the record. This review provides no such information. All it does is showcase that the album's concept touched a nerve of the author's, he hated it from the first time he heard about it, and felt the need to tell the world about it. In other words, he was being quite "tactless and crass." If he listened to and hated the record, so be it, but the least he can do is provide detailed enough information about the songs on the album so readers can garner a better sense about it and whether or not they might like to check it out, as opposed to going on a seemingly never-ending rant which leaves readers scratching their heads and wondering what in the world they just read.
My grade for this album review: 0 out of 5 stars - It's never a good thing when, after reading an album review, the reader is still asking the questions: "So, what does it sound like?," "What are the best songs on the album?," and "What are the names of any songs on the album?" This review is a fail of epic proportions and I hope Oliver Keens gets called out for it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drones_%28Muse_album%29
http://www.timeout.com/london/music/muse-drones-album-review
Comments
Post a Comment