Mutation - Error 500 (2013)

Being heralded "the next step in the evolution of extreme music", this album could have been the best record of the past year - in theory. Napalm Death's Shane Embury in the studio with Ginger Wildheart of The Wildhearts and Jon Poole of The Cardicas, some highly illustrious guest musicians... well, that could have been pure sonic terrorism. However, the only uprest and agitation this causes is the ruckus a 12 year old boy with a fake beard screaming "Jihad!" would stir on the playground, which is - let's be honest - not very much.

Yes, it's well done. These guys know what they are doing. But at the end of the day, good intentions don't make good records. The supposed musical extremity here is nervous math rock riff after weirdo break (hey, it's on Mike Patton's Ipecac Recordings, what did you expect?!), with some effects here and there. This is not brutal, it's just annoying. I hated mathematics in school, so why the fuck would I listen to math rock? It makes no sense, just like these songs don't.

Given, there are a few good moments on Error 500. Merzbow brings the noise on a track, but it sounds so tame that his chickens could have done it - in a karada. Mark E Smith slurs some toothless gibberish about bleeding shoelaces. Embury is still funny to look at (am I the only one who thinks he looks and plays like a balding Buzz Osborne?). But... but... that's just not enough. I am sure that the boners of Bitch Pitchfork hipsters will be pressing hard against their skinny jeans, but sorry: the emperor just does not wear any clothes.

Nice try, next.

http://www.facebook.com/MutationProject
http://www.ipecac.com

Muse - The 2nd Law (2012)

Oh my fucking god, what a piece of shit this album is. I’m sorry, but I can’t help myself, I hate Muse and everything that they stand for. It’s just depressing seeing 70 % of music listeners buying their every single album and attending every concert, supporting their crusade for total blandness and useless noise. I know I’m repeating myself like an old record, and I realize that you’re sick of my constant blabbering.  But hey, you know what? I don’t give a fuck. They suck. Big time. So here’s yet another hate article dedicated to my eternal arch nemesis.

The 2^nd Law is, by far, their most ridiculous attempt at sounding… you know, like a good band. With this new record, Muse managed to somehow escape from the universe of mediocrity where they’ve been lurking for what looks like to have been a fucking eternity and reach Michael Bayesque proportions of bad taste. It’s like a really, really, really crappy action movie filled with gratuitous violence, sports cars, painfully unfunny yo momma jokes, out of place pop-culture/media/tabloid references and obscenely objectified dumb party bimbos for horny 13 year old boys.  And for hell’s sake, it isn’t even the kind of thing for which you’d have to shut your brain off to fully enjoy its ‘’so bad that it’s good’’ charm. No, it’s insulting and demeaning to intelligent people in particular and music in general. Now, bear in mind, I didn’t make that comparison to the excruciating decline in quality of contemporary  Hollywood productions just for the sake of it -  I always believed that all forms of entertainment are somehow linked to each other. For example, an untalented movie director will definitely not put good tracks on his movie’s soundtrack, for obvious reasons. 

 

Wooooa duuuude, like, check out the paint-job on that car, man!

Consequently, Muse couldn’t help themselves but adopt the fine rhythms of dubstep for their new album, because why the hell not, it’s popular, every kid goes crazy while that musical diahreea is playing on the background, so it must be good, right? Well, no. It’s not. Frankly, even I was surprised by this bold move.  I knew they sold their souls both to the Devil of Bad Music and Daedric Prince of Selling Out a long time ago, but fuuuuuuuuuck me. This is the death of Ned Stark kind of stuff.  The dubstep element sounds out of place even for a band like Muse, who has mastered the art of whoring to every popular trend that’s been around for more than 5 seconds. I don’t care if they used instruments to recreate the dubstep sound – it sounds horrible and they should be ashamed of themselves. 

 Not that they’ve done the ‘’progressive rock’’ thing better. It’s still as bombastic as before, and even more.  Survival sounds like an early scratch of a Queen track, Supremacy is so repetitive that I checked my winamp if I didin’t accidentally download only a certain portion of the song that I’ve put on repeat, and Animals bored the hell out of me. I’m not sure if I was really bored or if I suffered the musical equivalent of a lobotomy but nevertheless, my life will never be the same. Oh, and let’s not forget about their now classic piano oriented ballads… which I will totally not talk about, because I’ve ran out of inventive ways to bash them.  4443242fdakfdsojfhsho8fhs98f4298y4yf3yf3.

 

Oh,  there’s also that ‘’we’re all gonna be dead blahblahblah nuclear wasteland yadda yadda Illuminati is watching you masturbating yodabadoo’’ nonsense that Matthew Bellamy has always used as an excuse to express his political views and yell mobilizing slogans in order to lead the people towards a revolution against the corrupt  governments who have been ruthlessly oppressing the people and violating their rights. A pretty nice thing coming from an upper class Caucasian male, huh? He understands us, man. When the time comes, be sure he’ll be joining our noble cause. Fuck you.     

So what’s more to say but avoid The 2^nd Law like it’s the Devil, and Muse like they’re your annoying cousin who constantly spams your Facebook news feeds with their terrible music created in Fruityloops.