Launching into the purely ridiculous.

I'm going to be honest and admit I can't decide if I love or hate the new Muse album. I've been following them since their debut since people from their label who used to hang out at Danny's in the '90s turned me on to their Radiohead-lite. Their albums got better and better, and while I never considered the band particularly deep, despite what Matthew Bellamy probably thinks, they hit all the right buttons with their grandiosity. Until their last album, The Resistance, which was pretty much just pure bullshittery. What killed it was the fact that Bellamy forgot that what makes his overblown epics delectable is a healthy melodicism, and The Resistance was bereft that crucial ingredient.

The new disc, The 2nd Law, brings that pop element back into the mix, but Bellamy has turned up the knob on the epic-o-meter to 12, rendering the results so over the top they make Queen sound like a skiffle group. But I have to admit its growing on me. Maybe it's because I can't help admire someone who has the capacity to transform overwhelming self-delusional self importance into something I can sing along to in the shower.