Review Summary: Very good collection.
To be honest I'm a big fan of earlier Muse. The material is madder, Muse-ier and, frankly, better. To listen to this like an album is nigh on impossible but I'll attempt to present it this way.
The collection kicks off with Forced In. It starts off very weirdly with the perfectly creepy setting that Muse can give so easily. The lyrics in this song are almost impossible to understand but the music itself is excellent. Dominic Howard's drumming is complicated but well fitted and the small bridges in the song work very well. It is an interesting track but was hardly going to be a single. More likely it would be used as an instrumental live.
Shrinking Universe follows and is much more of a standard rock song, perhaps too much. The chorus is pretty weak but it's a decent B-Side. Recess is more interesting with a haunting acoustic opening before Bellamy lays down his trademark falsetto.
Yes Please is a bit of a mix between the first two tracks but brilliant fun with a catchy chorus, scintillating bassline and exhillerating instrumental between 'singing'. Nature_1 is possible the best track on the album with a hypnotising chorus that proves anybody who thought Bellamy lacked charisma wrong. It works perfectly and would not have gone wrong on an album, perhaps even on the very high standard, Origin of Symmetry.
Shine is next although where this is an acoustic version I fail to see. It is pretty similar to the original version albeit a little less powerful. Ashamed is more interesting but these two tracks generally pale in comparison to the rest of the soundtrack. The next track, an instrumental called 'The Gallery' is technically and aesthetically much nicer with its weird yet catchy guitar-wailing.
The final track on the collection is one of the best, a slowed-down version of Hyper Music. This is a bit of an unfair description as it is really more than that: the lyrics are different, the singing is more powerful and the verses whispered rather than screamed. The name of the song and nature of the singing suggests this is like the opposite end of the scale to HM; whereas HM sounded angry, HCM sounds sad and sombre.
The live CD is equally impressive although misses out some great songs that are on the dvd version such as Sunburn and Bliss. Muse have been voted Best Live Act by many awards and magazines for years so it is no surprise that this is an enjoyable listen. Dead Star is one of the hardest songs Muse have done and sounds just as good live along with the strange Tom Waits Poem in the background. Micro Cuts sounds excellent too proving that Bellamy can reach the high notes just as easily live. Citizen Erased, Space Dementia and Showbiz are popular songs and tough to pull off but are done embarassingly well and the B-Sides of Agitated and In Your World sound excellent also.
It's a terrific collection that I recommend to all Muse fans but for those just getting into the group not the first suggestion.
