Origins of Symmetry

For my second artifact, I decided to listen to the album Origins of Symmetry by Muse. Muse is an alternative rock band from England; the album was based on the book Hyper Space by Michio Kaku, which mainly debates metaphysical questions. I think Muse, like the bands named in David Darks book Everyday Apocalypse, while being very anti-religious, can have glimpses of an apocalyptic worldview. The band’s music is very intense, and the whole album seemed to have a creepy, sort of chilling demeanor. Also Matthew Bellamy’s voice (who is the lead singer) went into falsetto quite often, adding to the impactful style of music that Muse produces.

Through listening to Origins of symmetry I immediately picked up that the lyrics suggested a lack of faith, and a sort of hopelessness towards the future. For example, songs like “Hyper Music” spoke to me with lyrics that asked, “Who’s returned from the dead? Who remains?” and put a sour taste of helplessness in my mind. Other songs on the album, such as “New Born” and “Dark Shine”, have a very depressing feeling, and almost bitter. The song “Space Dementia” is referring to the feeling of being complete alone, or total isolationism. The songs that rang apocalyptic to me most were “Plug in Baby” and “Screenager”, which both question technology and calls attention to the apparent disconnect and isolation between communities of people due to computers and other gadgets. Muse seems to be saying people hide behind technology, and replace companionship with machines. Through these songs and others on the album, I would say that Muse values human relationships. They aren’t Christian, and by observation I think that they believe redemption comes from interpersonal relationships, and ultimately yourself. The album reveals many issues of the empire. Isolation, depression, loneliness, hopelessness, envy, and longing (which is specifically addressed in the song “Bliss”) are all addressed. Though the band calls out these exasperating feelings, they do not offer any solutions to fix this brokenness in the empire.


Discussion Questions:
1) What are possible solutions to the problems addressed by Muse about the empire? As Christians, should we have a different perspective?

2) Would you consider this band apocalyptic? Why or why not?