Muse Shows Us Some Mercy and The Results Are Pulse-Pounding

I kid you not. If I was stranded on a desert island and could pick only one band to take with me Muse would definitely be in the running. I seriously need to toddle over to Amazon.com so I can obtain my copy of "Drones". "Mercy" is the new single from that album and it conjures up great memories of "Starlight" the amazing track from "Black Holes and Revelations". They have intensely theatrical mindsets in common. Not that this next reveal is any surprise to me but I'll reaffirm it anyway. Matthew Bellamy sings as if the wounds on his beating heart were perpetually getting ripped open. His is an ever heart rending plea for the cosmic shit storm to abate. "Mercy" places him at the top of his angst riddled game. Nobody hits those masculine upper register notes quite like he does. Dominic Howard dishes out some of the most compact, driven drum sequences of his entire career. You'd be unwise to shift your gaze too far afield from what he's cooking up. And what about Christopher Wolstenholme. The bass strikes with the malevolence of a restless python. Matt's no slouch on lead guitar either. Stem to stern Muse has succeeded in going above and beyond the call of gifting us with a mere rock song. Theatrics have brought them very far in their venture as polished musicians. Muse can regularly be relied upon to bring the goods. The amps ramp up to ten. The harmonies crack, pop, and smolder. Muse has crafted a body of work that most of their contemporaries would give their right arms to say they have. If you want your cranium given a strong workout Muse surely will oblige. Matthew doles out large scale spiritual analysis right off the bat in verse one. The anguish inside pays him a heavy debt. His efforts to be a game changer have fallen flat and his unrequited self actualization looms heavily. Verse two shows Matthew giving us a none to subtle hint as to what he's finding fault with...the powers that be. Chrissie Hynde kind of tooted that horn in one verse of "Back On The Chain Gang" when she brought up "The powers that be, that force us to live like we do." Matthew isn't team playing team concept on this record. He's Daffy Duck self-preservation mode. Matthew fancies himself not in alignment with any supreme being. I suspect that's a part explanation why verse three opens with "absent gods and silent tyranny". Matthew doesn't follow blindly. He questions when the opportunity arises. Muse earns its stripes as a thinking man's band. Matthew merits much credit for that. The band changed tempos nicely, swinging from "Dead Inside" which possessed a stealth juiced motor under the hood to "Mercy" which plays as if the band forgot to feed the meter during the recording session and took it upon itself to speed jam. The cherry on this sundae just so happens to be that lethal concluding note. You combine that with the video's nerves rubbed raw imagery and the results inspire awe on the most fundamental of levels. Muse showed mercy and then some. This is one mercy rule worth following to the letter.