Absolution (album)

Muse set aside time to develop their third album, as their previous recording sessions had been rushed.[1] They began work in late 2002 with the producers John Cornfield and Paul Reed at Air Studios, London, where they recorded "Butterflies and Hurricanes" and "Blackout".[2] They were joined there later by the American producer Rich Costey, who produced the rest of the album. Costey had worked with acts Muse admired including Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave, and wanted to help them find a bigger, more aggressive sound. According to Costey, Muse wanted to sound like a "colossal, dynamic, epic and powerful rock band".[2]

Muse and Costey regrouped in early 2003 for 10 days at Livingston Recording Studios, London, completing the recordings they had made at Air.[2] They then moved to Grouse Lodge, a residential recording studio in County Westmeath, Ireland, where most of the album was recorded.[2]

To create basic tracks, the band recorded together live, then focused on overdubs.[2] Costey minimised editing to preserve the "human touch" and avoid an artificial result.[2] He added little reverb, preferring to use the natural ambience recorded by the microphones.[2] The guitarist, Matt Bellamy, used custom Manson guitars and Marshall and Diezel amps.[2] The bassist, Chris Wolstenholme, split his signal into three Marshall amps, one clean and two with distortion, and blended the results.[2]

The group experimented with drum sounds, using a number of microphones. For the introduction to "Apocalypse Please", they recorded two large kick drums in the Grouse Lodge swimming pool. They also recorded Wolstenholme diving into the pool, which was used in the bridge of "Thoughts of a Dying Atheist".[2] For "Ruled By Secrecy", they recorded a drum take in the courtyard outdoors, hoping to capture an unusual ambience, but discarded the results.[2] On "Falling Away With You", Costey was keen to capture the sound of Bellamy's fingers on the guitar strings to create an intimate feeling.[2]

For "Sing for Absolution", Muse used prepared piano, laying metal objects such as nails and guitar strings on the piano strings. They also processed the piano with a pitch-shifting DigiTech Whammy pedal and an Echloplex delay effect.[2] For "Ruled By Secrecy", they blended acoustic piano and a Yamaha CP-80 electric piano. Costey recorded Bellamy's left and right-hand parts separately, and processed them using guitar amps and an Echoplex.[2] "Time is Running Out" was the most difficult song to record, and the band spent hours working on the bass sound for the introduction.[2]

"Endlessly" was the last song to be completed. According to Costey, the band tried a number of approaches but could not improve on the simplicity of Bellamy's demo, recorded with a piano and a four-to-the-floor drum machine rhythm. Eventually, they used lighter, jazzier drumming and an old Hammond organ.[2] Later in 2003, Muse and Costey spent three weeks in Cello Studios, Los Angeles, where they recorded more overdubs and the final version of "Endlessly", and mixed the album.[2]

Absolution is an alternative rock, progressive rock,[3] hard rock, and art rock album. It features a more polished and direct sound than Muse's previous albums.[4] Wolstenholme described it later as a continuation of their second album, Origin of Symmetry (2001), "where we knew what we wanted to do, and we'd found our feet a little bit, and we felt comfortable with what we did".[5]

Bellamy wrote most of the songs on piano, including guitar-based songs such as "Stockholm Syndrome".[6] For "Butterflies and Hurricanes", he sought to create a heavy rock song using classical piano instead of guitar, with a "mechanical paradiddle thing all the way through".[6] He was inspired by the "intensive, repetitive" piano compositions of Terry Riley, such as "In C".[6] "Blackout" uses mandolin and orchestra.[1]

The lyrics incorporate themes of fear, mistrust, personal achievement and joy, and a general theme of "things coming to an end".[1] Bellamy said that the beginning of the Iraq War had an effect on their songwriting.[1] He said the lyrics for "Apocalypse Please" followed naturally from the "epic and in-your-face" chord progression.[6]

Bellamy said that absolution was "not necessarily a religious word; it has meanings of purity, but it's not necessarily talking from a Christian or any particular religious point of view. I think it's just suggesting that the act of making music is a way of understanding things."[7]

Absolution is one of two Muse albums (alongside Black Holes and Revelations) to feature artwork by Storm Thorgerson. The ambiguous falling/floating image is similar to the René Magritte painting Golconda.[8] According to Muse drummer Dominic Howard, "The artwork can either be seen as people coming down to Earth or leaving the Earth, it's open to interpretation."[9]

Absolution was released on 23 September 2003 on CD and double vinyl.[10] The first single, "Stockholm Syndrome", was released as a download and was downloaded more than 20,000 times.[11] Because of contractual obligations, Muse could not allow it to be downloaded free, so the fee was set at $0.99 in the US.[1] On tour for Absolution, Muse performed in arenas for the first time and headlined Glastonbury Festival in 2004.[12]

Professional ratings

Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	72/100[13]
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[14]
Alternative Press	5/5[15]
Blender	[16]
Drowned in Sound	10/10[17]
The Guardian	[18]
NME	9/10[19]
Q	[20]
Rolling Stone	[21]
The Scotsman	[22]
Uncut	[23]

On Metacritic, Absolution has a score of 72 of 100 based on 16 reviews, indicating "generally favourable reviews".[13] Alternative Press wrote that its "chaotic choruses feel like the triumphant culmination of some earth-shattering undertaking",[15] while Andrew Future of Drowned in Sound called it "a truly elemental opus".[17] Tyler Fisher of Sputnikmusic hailed Absolution as Muse's most consistent album to date and felt that the album had perfected the sound of the band's previous releases, writing that it "expands on newer sounds and improves on others."[24] Alexis Petridis of The Guardian wrote: "Muse sound like a band who are at the top of their game. Their confidence carries you through the album's excesses."[18] Rob Kemp of Rolling Stone was less enthusiastic, drawing Radiohead comparisons but concluding that Bellamy "doesn't bring as much ingenuity to his singing."[21]

Absolution was Muse's first album to chart in the US, and is credited with establishing their fan base there.[11] It was the second Muse album to be released in the US, due to a creative dispute with had with Maverick Records, which prevented the release of Origin of Symmetry in the US.

Absolution reached No. 1 on the Billboard Top Heatseekers chart and No. 107 on the Billboard 200.[25] It was certified gold by the RIAA in March 2007, becoming Muse's first album to be certified in the US.[26] The album also featured Muse's first American hits – "Time Is Running Out" and "Hysteria", the former becoming their first UK Top 10 single and eventually went gold in the US.[27]

• Initial copies of the CD featured inlay errors, where the songs "Interlude" and "Hysteria" switched places on the track listing.

Personnel adapted from Absolution liner notes[31]

Muse

• Matt Bellamy – lead vocals, guitars, keyboards, programming, string arrangements, production
• Christopher Wolstenholme  – bass, backing vocals, production
• Dominic Howard – drums, programming, percussion, production

Notes

References

• Absolution at Discogs (list of releases)