Listened to it again today after sleeping on it.
The IBTY/Queen/Frog Chorus intro doesn't quite grate on me as much as it did, and I'm starting to appreciate the structure. The 'Arnie' bits aren't quite as bad either.
However, the lyrics are still the worst I've ever heard in a song ever, Matt seems to be going backwards as a lyricist, they're worse than NSC, Guiding Light, and dare I say it, Overdue, and I can't decide whether they're worse first time around for being almost spoken and standing out so much, or second time because it sounds so over the top and ridiculous. Matt's trying far too hard with his vocals, the ending is painful and the first guitar part isn't quite as impressive as I thought; it doesn't go anywhere. It's like David Gilmour's got ridiculously angry, got into a fight with Brian May and neither of them can remember why. It reminds me a lot of NSC. Terrible lyrics, great instrumentation, madly over the top and excruciatingly cheesy. But at least it isn't appearing in a film about sparkly vampires.
However, the scream at the end of the first verse is amazing, the falsetto at the end of the second is great, the high note is just wrong but it's at least impressive he can still reach it and so convincingly for such a long time, the solo is amazing. It's the sort of stuff they should have been doing all along, it's a natural progression of Bellamy's work on Origin and Absolution, that's been missing off the last two albums apart from maybe the extended version of Assassin. It's some of the hardest and most technical stuff he's done for years, so hopefully the new album will see a bit more of the alt-metal they used to be so good at.
Also, the song's a bit of fun, we have to remember it's for the Olympics, to expect Citizen Erased is a bit much. I don't see what was wrong with just giving them Butterflies And Hurricanes, which does everything Survival does without the cheese, but there isn't a much greater honour than being asked to do a song for the Olympics, so I'm just going to enjoy the silliness of it.
Still looking forward to the album, I love the two tracks on the trailer, and even though there seems to be a lot of experimentation and messing around with different styles, the lead single even being an 80s style jazz inspired song with a brass section and a solo by the sax player from Stevie Wonder's Superstition (no idea how they'll do that live unless Matt gets a synth pickup again or Morgan plays it on synth) (no idea why a supposed rock band would release that sort of song as lead single either, but I'll wait until I hear it), there should still be room for some good old fashioned rock and alt-metal that The Resistance and BH&R lacked.
Hopefully TSL will be better produced than the last two and be more coherent. They'll never again reach the standards of OoS and Absolution, which is a shame because they're better musicians and Matt is a much better singer now, especially if Bellamy remains in charge and acting like he's the second coming of Freddie Mercury, and it's too late to reinvent themselves in the way Radiohead did on Kid A, but they can still get back on track, especially now Chris has recovered from his alcoholism and will hopefully stop Matt ruining everything.
Looking at some of the reaction, Muse are now the laughing stock of the nation because of this song, and I feel embarrassed, so I need them to get a grip and put everything right in September.