This week, Qobuz is throwing itself into one of the most eagerly-anticipated albums of the first half of 2015, the 7th work from the English group Muse.
The originality of their output has always lain in knowing how to mix genres as different as pop, rock, poetic lyricism (with some powerful piano to boot), and going as far as Heavy Metal, with a pinch of dance thrown in.
The diversity is such that fans can be completely baffled, or rather surprised, by certain decisions and musical directions that the group takes.
With Drones, Muse don't hesitate in sounding the return to their roots, towards something rawer, more authentic in their art. Whatever this something is, this column, Yes Master !, isn't meant to bore on with muscio-artistic album criticism, but to tell you about the quality of the sound, from recording to mixing and pre-mastering. We are always on the search for the Holy Grail, and naturally, we listen to a lot of the albums in CD and Hi-Res, 24-bit quality on offer in the Qobuz shop.
Drones in our Eustachian tubes.
Astell&Kern AK120 player fired up, Denon 7100 ready to go, we set off on a musical journey that we will repeat several times, until we are sure in our ideas.
For sure, we've had some technical help - the Qobuz quality team has endorsed this Muse LP - but, sometimes... listening is just as important as seeing the numbers.
To start with, note that, generally, the LP is pretty frisky, in terms of level, and volume. With Dead Inside, the opener, the die is cast. We know that we're going "all the way": heavy drums, synths balanced in the Stereo, vocals a little raw (no flourishes, a little flat), a very Rock sound with a nicely put-together dynamic. When the guitars get going, we get the Muse hallmark, with a general vague feeling, in terms of its overall texture, of this piece being a supremely-controlled rough draft.
Drill Sergeant gives Muse the opportunity to return to their origins, which lie close to Heavy Metal, with the guitars brought to the fore in the mix, a very convincing rendering of the vocals (different from the first piece) and a lovely soundstage overall. This is exactly what we were hoping for from listening to Muse on high quality audio, even when the whole ensemble is deliberately distorted. It's furious and fast!
With Mercy, we start off with piano in the lead, quite distinct from the rest of the mix, before the guitars arrive to create a feverish dynamic. There again, we see the real Muse in the mix of instruments and vocals, clear, on both channels.
Reapers offers a stunning stereo, and electrical-lyrical flights of guitar! We'd say that this strips away some of the dynamics, so we recommend listening to these flights on headphones. With The Handler, we are back to a raw rock, guitars in the lead (mind-blowing in themselves), and the listener is rewarded with some real punch. Defector gives you what you need, returning to the technical recipe of the previous pieces, with some wonderful work on the vocals to boot (with timbres that sound like an homage to Queen). Aftermath is a little pearl of subtlety, both technical and artistic with its synths and its work on the bass and the sound on the drums.
A real anthem, The Globalist is a nod at a piece by Ennio Morricone, and headphones pulled on tight, we loved immersing ourselves in a soundstage whose texture is superb, very well-worked and, above all, prepare yourself for some perfectly stunning crescendos.
The piece Drones brought us to our knees with the vocals in stereo in the a capella lyrical sections which took after Christian choral music, and which richly reward listening on headphones!
Drones is an artistically surprising album, carried by technical quality dominated by a powerful dynamic, a studied use of stereo and a texture which runs from "raw" (very rock 'n' roll) to multi-layered.
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