Articles

MUSE: Melody Maker Pick of the Week

Best to get it out of the way immediately. Comparisons are bound to come flying as soon as people grab hold of the first few bars of Muse's first widely available single, "Uno". Muse, I put it to you, that on occasion you sound more than a little bit like those prog-rock behemoths, the once-mighty Radiohead. A lazy link perhaps, but one that you're going to have to get used to fielding. How, then, do you plead? "Well, we obviously can't deny it totally," shrugs lead singer and chief songwriter Matthew Bellamy. "There is a similarity there, but we're much more than just a fill-in until their next album comes out. We're really not in the business of just peddling some lame pastiche. We're Muse, not Radiohead de-caff." Spun like a true professional. Matthew Bellamy, it is sobering to note, as with the other two members of the band, Chris Wolstenholme and drummer Dominic Howard, is 20 years old. 0nly 10 years old when Madchester reigned, the current Mondays reunion must seem like karaoke night down the local social club to them. Shaun Ryder has bruises older than this lot. Schoolmates hailing from the sleepy coastal town of Teignmouth, you can't help but identify in Muse's music the ennui and sanity-stripping boredom that comes from living in a quintessentially English seaside resort. "It can be mind-numbing," recalls Matthew with a shudder. "In the winter it's a ghost town. Everywhere's closed and there really isn't anything to do. Come the summer though, and I don't know which is worse, all these tourists descending upon us like a swarm of flies. You just end up staying in all year round. Music is the only obvious means of escape when you're a kid." There's a hundred new bands out there that sound like Radiohead - most of them as worthwhile as a can of carbonated dog piss - what sets Muse apart from all those tired copyists is what first alerted us to the fact that Thom and the boys were more than just one-hit wonders. They will genuinely move you. They will make you feel almost uncomfortable when exposed to the naked emotion and raw sincerity that pumps through the 80 or so songs they've already stockpiled. "For us," explains Matthew again, "the only two groups to have really meant anything in the Nineties have been Radiohead and Nirvana. Radiohead around about when 'The Bends' came out, though. There was a genuine vulnerability and sense of innovation about those two bands that set them apart. You got the impression that they were genuinely exploring themselves, rather than just their big brother's record collection. Britpop was just an exercise in imitation. 'Tonight, Matthew we are also going to be The Small Faces!' Utterly pointless." Muse are more than just Thom/Kurt copyists. They articulate emotions that will draw you in and they have even better tunes, if the handful of songs they've released so far are anything to go by. Listening to current single "Uno" and other tracks like "Muscle Museum" and "Instant Messenger", you're more than likely to pick up on the odd little strands of melody that give the songs a distinctly exotic edge. Matthew? "I spent some time travelling, just bumming around Europe when I left college. I think it's good to expose yourself to other influences other than just the small narrow-minded few that too many people content themselves with. It makes things more interesting." So when you realise you haven't felt tempted to listen to "OK Computer" in the last 12 months because it's so self indulgent, turn instead to Muse. You'll wonder how people this young can sound so heartbreakingly lovelorn and lovely. F*** knows what state they'll be in when they hit 30.

Back to the top

Live Review

The Roadhouse, Manchester First headline tour for angsty Brit-rockers Tonight it's immediately apparent that the two records which changed Muse's collective lives were Nirvana's 'Nevermind' and Radiohead's 'The Bends'. Not that Muse mirror either band too closely, but their music is a seething mesh of passion and anger wrapped around a darkly beating heart. Whether they're delivering a mellow (but angst ridden) lilting acoustic passage noise supernova, it's obvious that their music means a hell of a lot to them. It's this passion and depth of feeling that links them inextricably to their mentors. Last seen supporting 3 Colours Red and Feeder, they have enough of a crunch to satisfy fans of the heavier thing in life. The dense, hypnotic 'Showbiz' mixes layers of squalling guitars with a bass sound that could level buildings. 'Uno' is a slowed-down, monstered-up tango of sorts, while 'Falling Down' showcases the other side of the band: sensitive, hushed and dominated by Matthew Bellamy's warbling falsetto croon.The vocals are actually the most striking aspect of Muse's sound, rising to a dog-bothering pitch. Despite this they remain awesomely clear and strident. For fans of soul-searching guitar rock, Muse are definitely a taste worth acquiring.

Back to the top

Music Week-Studio Update : MUSE

The link between John Leckie, Muse and Sawmills Studios is a particularly close one since Leckie's manager Safta Jaffery and Sawmills owner Dennis Smith run Taste Music, [sic] the production company which has Muse on its roster of signed artists. Nevertheless Sawmills, in Cornwall, has always been one of Leckie's favourite haunts and so became an obvious choice for the extra tracking and overdubbing required to complete the three-piece band's debut album for Madonna's Maverick label. "I've been coming to Sawmills for years," says Leckie. "We made the first two Cast albums here." Leckie describes Muse as "the most modern-sounding guitar band I have ever worked with". Most of the backing tracks were recorded in the live room at Rak on the API console. The band and producer then decamped to Sawmills Studios, which have recently been refurbished to include 48 tracks of Soundscape digital alongside its popular Trident desk. "Soundscape is great for editing but I still prefer to record to analogue tape. Anyone who says these workstations sound the same as analogue is talking rubbish," says Leckie. Initial tracks were mixed at Master Rock, though it is unlikely the album will be finished there. "I love the sound of the monitors in the mix room," says Leckie, "but it's normally so booked up I can't get in there." Instead Leckie plans to mix in Eden's brand new SSL room.

Back to the top

NME ON 20/2/99

If it was the plot of a new Robin Williams movie you'd be puking in your nachos. There's these three Disney-sweet, doe-eyed Devon kids and their school band, right - devoted young pups determined not to lose grip on their schoolboy dream of rock Valhalla. Five years they slog and scrape, painting and decorating by day, regurgitating old fraggle covers in cold local pub backrooms by night until, one day, their fairy godfestival appears in the shape of In The City '98, plucks them from the basement below the deepest pit of obscurity and announces them one of its three glorious champions. And hey, you'll love this twist. See, then they got a record deal from Madonna for Christmas. "We were in LA doing a showcase for another record company," singer, guitarist and Muse's central songwriting enigma Matthew Bellamy remembers, "and Maverick heard we were around and asked us to stay a few more days to play for them. We eventually signed the day before Christmas Eve. We got a record deal for Christmas." Don't you feel slightly sick to the stomach knowing you're labelmates with Alanis Morissette? Matthew grins. "Not really. They've got the Deftones and I really love the Deftones. The great thing about Maverick is they've only got about 15 acts and they've taken us as a priority. They're not the sort of label who'd drop a band if their first album doesn't sell too well. But we're not corporate at all. We're still independent in this country." Contrary bleeders, Muse. They (Matthew, drummer Dominic Howard and bassist Chris Wolstenholme) write songs of great depth and import, yet refuse to give even the slightest hint as to their meaning because, according to Matthew, "I let everyone look at them how they want to. "They play spooksome, serrated guitar epics yet onstage they behave like demented gnats on top-grade Vietnam nutter drugs. They've signed to Madso's mega label in America, yet may still sign to Ruptured Tampon Records worldwide.And they're an allegedly 'corporate' band who refused to play the winners' showcase at In The City because it was too, um, corporate. "We didn't want to overdo it, play to a business audience," says Matthew."And the live thing was a bit of a shambles." Not so their debut single 'Muscle Museum' : the primal howl of a throat lined with razor blades and and a soul sunken from playing every toilet venue in the Honiton district, a mighty noise which could have been cloned from DNA scraped from Thom Yorke's own larynx. Oh, except according to their press release, Muse consider such squalid comparisons to be "lazy journalism". "It's too easy to say, 'You sound like this, you sound like that'," says Chris ."people don't listen to the stuff enough to really make up their own mind about it." But you do sound like Radiohead though. Matthew: "We don't want to get pigeonholed so easily." Oh come on. If there was a National Sounding Like Radiohead Championship you'd be on the expert judging panel alongside Radiohead and another band who sound exactly like Radiohead. "We take our influences from a lot of American bands like Nirvana,"Matthew asserts. "And yeah, Radiohead at the time of 'The Bends' were doing new things with guitar music that it's not hard to be influenced by. If that's your opinion, fair enough. I just don't care." Muse, then. Sound like Radiohead. Only better.

Back to the top

Back to Muse stuff