Muse "The Resistance" [2009]

Just when you thought the world was safe from pompous arena rock (and you could throw away your Coldplay and Oasis t-shirts), broadly melodramatic limey stage-strutters Muse push their way into the spotlight, seemingly for no other reason than to keep Ticketmaster in business. Engorged by the same fascist aesthetic of rock domination as U2, Muse rips off Led Zep's faux-Arab mellotron junk and Freddie Mercury's chorale orgies with equal shamelessness. That's because arena rock is stuck forever in its shirtless adolescence, which is why nobody with a brain gives a crap about it anymore. Opting for the grandiose over the meaningful, Muse provides sentimentality for people who've lost the ability to conjure real emotion, or never had the capacity in the first place. Why bother feeling anything when you can just hold a lighter over your head until your thumb begins to burn? "The Resistance" is a good title, though: you should resist this album at all costs.