(Except for “Micro Cuts”, which I can assure you is quite loud). “Screenager”, “Darkshines”, “Citizens Erased” all work well together to bring on a really desolate and eerie quietness. Tie that in with the awesomely complex piano on “Space Dementia ”, and quite literally everything about “Plug in Baby”, and you can really see just how dominating the sound on the first half of the album really is.Īll of that is contrasted with the entire second half, which consists of relatively much quieter, and slower paced tracks.
Starting with “ New Born”, which opens with an almost ominous piano riff that bleeds into a booming hard rock epic. He finally settled on the now iconic “football goalposts” shaped structures.Īll of the tracks on this album are incredibly diverse. These included subjects like tall sentry stations, a mass of tangled landlines, and even crowbar shaped rods smashing through disembodied windows. William actually went through nearly eight different designs. As well as being the band’s only hand painted album cover, the empty space filled with erect and towering structures work well to visualize the otherworldly feel of the album. Of the 14 artists and their many submissions, the final piece the band decided on, painted by William Eager, couldn’t have been more perfect. Matt explains in a 2001 interview, “…even though each piece is in a radically different style, you get a sense of there being some form of continuity through different people’s perceptions of the same theme”. The band commissioned 14 freelance artists to make a piece given the same title of Origin of Symmetry. The cover art actually has a fairly interesting history behind it. But all of it blends together very well to create a uniquely passionate and soulful album. Although his singing is incredibly impressive, his quirks and mannerisms, especially the lyrics on this LP specifically, are admittedly quite hard for new listeners to get accustomed to.
Muse pulled absolutely all the stops in this LP. We see Muse blending elements from progressive and space rock, and evening leaning towards bits of punk and baroque. Taking into account the heavy and iconic riffs, the nearly avant-garde lyricism, the nearly deafening basslines, Origin of Symmetry contains a raw darkness and intensity that is utterly unmatched, even 19 years later.Īs opposed to its predecessor which also suffered from a pretty severe lack of focus, Origin of Symmetry is incredibly ambitious and unique, especially for a second album. Origin of Symmetry is honestly where Muse really starts to come into their own stylistically. Muse’s debut album Showbiz from 1999 is often criticized for practically wearing it’s Radiohead influence on its sleeves. That fact alone makes it an incredibly hard album for me to give an honest and objective review. Along with Absolution from 2003, Origin of Symmetry is my personal favorite album within the entirety of Muse’s discography.
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