Muse have always reminded me of Queen, not by slavishly copying Freddie & Co, but in how influenced both are/were by classical music and their sense of the grandiose (albeit minus the Mercury factor in the case of Muse). And now it seems they’ve done another ‘Queen’ and gone disco. ‘Panic Station’ is Queen’s ‘Another One Bites The Dust’ meets Stevie Wonder’s ‘Superstitious’; the melody is pure Freddie and the rhythm section and guitar work are straight off ‘Jazz’ or ‘The Game’. And, just as it did for Queen, it works. It’s fun, catchy and frankly is a welcome break from a conveyor belt of increasingly ‘samey’, slightly overblown and intense of Muse releases of late. Of course, as with all Muse output, the production is slick, fat and in your face which makes it all the more potent. It’ll probably not make new fans from those who have already made their minds up about them, but it will give existing fans a different flavour of the band and bodes well for their new album, ‘The 2nd Law’.
Good to see also that the band have got into the spirit of things with their frivolously camp video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4MvQ5N3usc). They’re probably not as intentionally funny as they think they are but it’s all tongue-in-cheek and fair play to them.
Caught the show Dahhhling……loved it!
‘Panic Station’ is out now, available from http://smarturl.it/the2ndlaw
