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Entertaining and rabble-rousing, daft and deadly serious, it's a fantastic record, with almost limitless appeal.
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Head-smashing songs like "Supermassive Black Hole" and "Invincible" all point to an album that strives to be nothing less than epic. It succeeds.
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Q MagazineA work of dazzling scope and grandeur... It is impossible to imagine any other band making music quite like this. [Aug 2006, p.106]
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Alternative PressRevelations is Muse's best work yet primarily because of the fluid balance it keeps between excess and restraint. [Aug 2006, p.220]
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A monstrously grandiose, ridiculously gargantuan and stunningly inventive work from start to end.
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Muse have made a ridiculous, overblown, ambitious and utterly brilliant album, with more thrills than their previous three put together.
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The work of three individuals arriving at the peak of their powers, it’s likely to be the band’s OK Computer, their Music For The Jilted Generation, their Dark Side Of The Moon – the record that everything they produce subsequently is immediately unfairly rated against, ‘til time’s own sands sit still.
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Muse have really done it this time.
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In terms of sheer Freddie Mercury bravado and guitar-shredding, genre-jumping prog-rock pomposity, this stirring record is indeed (forgive me) something of a revelation.
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Entertainment WeeklyCorny and bombastic, their latest is also ambitious, impeccably built, and apt to induce fits of uncontrolled fist pumping. [14 Jul 2006, p.81]
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It shouldn't work, but Bellamy's mania is so convincingly realised that even the most avowed Muse refusenik may have to finally concede defeat.
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BlenderLike a question 1970s double disc compacted into 45 brutally efficient minutes, it has the momentum of a meteor. [Aug 2006, p.108]
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UncutConsolidates and amplifies everything they've done up to now. [Aug 2006, p.110]
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Black Holes and Revelations is probably the least restrained album of 2006, which for some is a blessing, for others a pretentious annoyance. It is, however, a focused album.
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Paste MagazineA career milestone and one of the year's strongest rock albums. [Sep 2006, p.73]
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Los Angeles TimesOverall, "Black Holes and Revelations" offers a refreshing revamp, but the jarring contrast between its new and vintage sounds comes off as slightly half-baked. [9 Jul 2006]
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That’s not to say the album is a disappointment (it isn’t) or not great (it is, mostly), but after hitting their creative and commercial peak with Absolution and its subsequent breakthrough stateside, Black Holes and Revelations clearly reveals itself to be a transition record.
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Muse is nothing if not distinctive, and Black Holes and Revelations is very much distinctively Muse: fantastic at points and ridiculous at others, without much in between.
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Under The RadarBlack Holes and Revelations isn’t a perfect record but it’s a worthy addition to an already stellar catalog. [#14]
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Muse's magnificent powerhouse that is new album 'Black Holes And Revelations' rectifies - almost - everything that once was wrong.
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Muse impresses, and continues to impress on Black Holes, not only because they have the Romantic classical harmony-fueled huge stadium sound down pat, but in the details that show a band mature and talented.
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If you manage to suspend your disbelief a little, Black Holes and Revelations will push your pleasure buttons.
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This is the first Muse album to sound - brace yourself, outrageous melodrama fans - ordinary.
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The album is a black hole of pomp and nothingness, a perfect document of the times. So, to fully enjoy it, it's best to turn your brain off and let yourself get sucked in.
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MojoWhat this record lacks is a couple of the screamalong anthems at which Muse have become renowned. [Aug 2006, p.88]
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Though the album grows stronger as it lurches on, the trio's pursuit of bombast leaves the killer melodies lost in outer space.
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This is the band's most autopiloted effort yet, a hacked-up last-gen rehash of said space jams, only now with greater emphasis on glitz and glam. Somehow Muse, always loveably lame, have managed to take a turn for the lamer.
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Unfortunately, it seems the group is more interested in refining, rather than re-defining, their craft, whose torpid mechanics bear no mystery, no guts behind all that glamour.
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Impressive song construction ruined by heart-wrenching dramatics.
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SpinMuse used to sound like a Radiohead tribute band; now they sound like a Muse knockoff. [Aug 2006, p.81]
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Takes rock to Seussian levels of ridiculousness.
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Give Muse credit for remaking itself over the years into a full-blown theatrical experience, and not just another echoing rock band. But that experience is, frankly, kind of shitty.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 470 out of 511
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Mixed: 22 out of 511
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Negative: 19 out of 511
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chriscAug 15, 2009
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Dec 20, 2012
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Oct 5, 2010