After arriving in Teignmouth about 2 hours before doors opened at the venue, the atmosphere around the town was amazing. To see what is usually a sleepy town turn into a hive of activity just for two days was very unique. Local shops were making a mint, it seemed that the whole town was out to enjoy the day and everyone was in good cheer. My personal favorite moment whilst exploring Teignmouth was being approached by a little old lady who turned out to be a ticket tout! Asking whether “…any of you young dears need a ticket for tonight’s show?” It makes a nice change from a big burly bloke asking whether you need any ‘Charlie’! But that serves as a great example of how unique and friendly the whole thing felt. It was definitely a an amazing atmosphere.

Braving drunk morons, geeks, and annoying Dutch women we were lucky enough to get a very good space about 3 rows back so we had a good view as the two support acts, local band The Quails and Cosmo Jarvis – not to mention two clowns on stilts – did a great job of warming up the audience. Rumours were abound that local people were allowing fans unable to get tickets to watch the show from their private sea-front balconies for £80 each, and taking a quick look around it was clear to see that the local home owners were making quite a bit of profit.  But as the full moon rose over the ocean, every one in the audience was obviously losing patience waiting for Muse after 3 and half hours of standing in a mixture of sand and mud.

Eventually, half past 9 arrived and we were greeted by the strange sight of a circus ringmaster introducing Muse. We wanted strange and fun…we got it!

Opening with the album opener and new single Uprising, Muse were on top form with Bellamy’s trademark ridiculous moves and Wolstenholmes’ manic head-banging. With a set-list containing all the hits, Muse had the 10,000 crowd wrapped around their proverbial finger. Not even a slight technical issue with the piano which resulted in a hold up of about 3 minutes which drummer Dom Howard attempted to hide with a small speech could not kill the atmosphere. Muse were obviously having a great time themselves when they dropped two surprises into the setlist in the shapes of a jazz version of  rare live track Cave and a cover of the (in)famous 70′s instrumental Popcorn. Although 10,000 fans had crammed into The Den, it felt oddly like a very intimate show. Also getting played for the first time were new tracks off The Resistance; Resistance, Undisclosed Desires and Unnatural Selection were all unveiled throughout the show alongside a collection of flawless classic Muse singles, Stockholm Syndrome, New Born and Hysteria. Muse finally closing the encore with the epic one-two of Plug in Baby and a truly epic performance of Knights of Cydonia.

This was one epic day trip to the seaside that no-one who was there will forget in a hurry.

At its heart, The Resistance is a quasi-concept album with political undertones that are more Orville than Orwell. But thats what makes The Resistance so endearing. Who wants conspiracy theories that are mundane enough to perhaps be 1% accurate (such as those voiced by Charlie Sheen) when you can have reptilian extraterrestrial invaders masquerading as world leaders or our existence on Earth being a result of DNA floating through space? But to be fair, what else would we expect from Matt Bellamy?

With as close to a down-to-earth start as you can get with Muse, The Resistance kicks off with the lead single from the album, the anthemic Uprising which sounds like the love child of Marilyn Manson and Blondie dressed up as Dr Who (an analogy you may have already come across). Then its straight to two tracks which would make good singles to follow up from Uprising. Resistance and Undisclosed Desires. Resistance is a surpassingly nice mix of a piano melody that sounds like it could fit perfectly into 90′s era house music and an all out rock track. Which leads nicely into the Depeche Mode inspired track Undisclosed Desires. A track which features a first for Muse – drummer Dominic Howard’s completely sampled drum beat. It’s a track that is very sparse that utilizes negative space very well, the pizzicato strings and Chris Wolstenholmes’ slap-bass blend together to create something which really does work excellently.

With the conventional third of the album done, Muse take us on a journey from Queen inspired harmonies to epic guitar anthems via an 80′s arena rock ballad.

Its mad, its bad (cha-mone), its arabic, its almost like Freddie Mercury reincarnated and its perhaps the most over-blown song you’re likely to hear this year! United States of Eurasia is easily one of the most memorable tracks from the album. With its arabic string bridges and harmony laden choruses, USoE acts as a pseudo national anthem for all the Eurasian countries (which is a feat you can only pull off as one of the worlds biggest bands!) but it isn’t the changes of pace throughout the track which suprise you the most, as if the track wasn’t crazy enough to begin with, Muse throw a curve ball in the shape of a cover of Chopin’s Nocturne Number 2, USoE is a close to schizophrenic music as you can get! But its placement in the album really highlights what is arguably the weakest song on the album, Guiding Light. A cheesy sounding 80′s power ballad drum beat starts the song which leads to the albums only conventional guitar solo, its sounds like what you would imagine Guns n Roses would sound like if they were good. This also highlights just how good the next two tracks are though. Unnatural Selection and MK Ultra go together as am amazing double-whammy of guitar led epic rock songs. With riffs in abundance, these tracks will please all but the most straight laced of Daily Mail readers.

The final third of The Resistance see Muse take an amazing step forward in their songwriting skills. I Belong To You / Mon Coeur S’ouvre a ta Voix takes us on a trip to the side streets of 1930′s Paris, with its almost jazz piano there is no doubting that this is an incredibly over-the-top fun song. Inspired by the opera of the same name, this track contains one of Muse’s greatest ever middle sections. An operatic piano and choir underline Bellamy’s (sometimes comical) French lyrics which eventually leads to an Oboe solo. A song that perhaps Muse made so that you could introduce your Grandparents to them.

The Resistance closes with what are the best 3 songs on the album. The 3-part Symphony Exogenesis is comprised of Pt. 1: Overture, Pt.2: Cross-Pollination and Pt. 3: Redemption (It all sounds very pretentious, but who can fault a band for doing what they want to do?). Brilliant use of sparse lyrics, amazing falsetto vocals, epic 40 part orchestra and some perfect piano solos really do show that this is a culmination of years of work. Although the 3-parts could perhaps flow together slightly better, theres no denying that its as close to perfect as you can get.

So there you have it. An album that can veer from amazing fun to incredible sincerity, its sometimes camp but always epic. Its going to be an incredibly cliched end to this review but here it is anyway…The Resistance (for me at least) is the album of the year.

The Horrors © Partyends 2009

Tonight The Horrors showed that they were not just a novelty act. After their well received sophomore outing Primary Colours, it was always going to be an interesting gig. The surprisingly eclectic audience were mostly indifferent to the two largely forgettable support bands, both of whom seemed to think that impersonating the very band that they were supporting would guarantee them a good reception, but when The Horrors finally emerged at around 9.30 anticipation was pretty high.

Opening with the synth soaked Mirror’s Image there was instant uproar. Frontman Faris Rotter stalked the stage, muttering and screaming whilst all hell broke loose in an explosion of plastic pint classes and all manner of beverages down at the barriers (it was pretty obvious that the stewards would be in for a bust night).  Storming through most of Primary Colours, the atmosphere slowly got rowdier which saw crowd surfers attempting to cling to the alcohol doused lights above. Closing their main set with an excellent rendition of A Sea Within a Sea, the excitement was palpable for all to feel. But this was nothing compared to when the band reemerged for their encore.

Storming straight into the classic live track Count in Fives, the Academy 2 explodes into instant riotous action. Strobe lights were working over time as all the old classics from Strange House were performed with as much gusto as would be expected. The end of the set – Gloves- saw Faris dive into the adoring fans at the barriers with the job undoubtedly well done.
Either love them or hate them, with their unique mix of goth-surf and garage rock, theres no denying that The Horrors put on a great show!

If you haven’t gave Primary Colours a listen yet, heres the opening track Mirror’s Image for your delectation.

You can buy the full album from XL Recordings

nataliethediva @ photobucket

With the new Muse album The Resistance imminent, we here at Moon and Back music thought we’d pay tribute to the genius’ that are Muse with an unreleased demo from before Showbiz. Without all the studio touches, this demo of Escape offers us a rare glimpse of a young Muse band. The rawness of the track adds real charm to an already great song!

Muse – Escape (Demo)

Oh, and whilst we’re on the subject of unreleased demos, consider this Bloc Party demo, Cells Shaped Like Stars as some what of a bonus track If you bought the single of The Prayer then you may recognise the instrumentation of this song, its basically the better version of the b-side We Were Lovers.

Bloc Party – Cells Shaped Like Stars (Demo)

And thus concludes my first (and quite frankly, blunt) first post!