While not a concept album, there are a few recurring themes in “The Resistance,” the fifth studio album from British trio the Muse.
One seems to be love, or more accurately lost love. On “Guiding Light,” lead singer Matthew Bellamy sings, “Loved by numbers, you’re losing life’s wonder, touch like strangers, detached.”
The other is, surprisingly on an album called “The Resistance,” something of an us-against-the-system theme. On “Uprising” there is the line “Rise up and take the power back/It’s time the fat cats had a heart attack,” a sentiment continued on “Unnatural Selection” when Bellamy sings “I want to push this beyond a peaceful protest, I wanna speak in a language they’ll understand.”
The album as a whole draws from a wide range of influences, from classical to Depeche Mode, glam rock and Queen. Despite the almost wandering sound of the disc, even within individual songs it somehow works. It can however, be hard to immerse yourself fully into the album, especially on first listening, because of that wandering nature.