Since we’ve already ranked the albums from both Converge and Cave In we thought it only fitting to complete the triumvirate of the three big C’s by doing Coalesce. Of the three, Coalsece are certainly the most abrasive both in sound and lyrics. There isn’t a moment of melody in their music and vocalist Sean Ingram ruffled a few feathers with songs denouncing the politics of straight edge and his pro-Christianity stance.
Well, we hopped in our nostalgia machine and traveled back in time to revisit Coalesce’s catalog and though we may have stiff necks from trying to nod along to breakdowns in 9/4 and sore throats from doing our best Ingram growl impressions we’re ready to get into it.
5. There Is Nothing New Under The Sun (1999)
Yeah so right off the bat I’m breaking the rules and including what is technically an EP of Led Zeppelin covers in the album rankings. It did originally come out on 12” though so fuck it. Look, there’s nothing wrong with doing a cover song. It can help pad the time on a set and might even be the only time you get an audience to move around a bit because they actually know a song you’re playing. But recording an entire album (or EP) of covers reeks of self-indulgence. If you really want to listen to a whole album of cover songs just go listen to any actual Led Zeppelin since it’s all old blues songs that they stole* anyway.
*Our legal team just reminded me I need to add the word “allegedly” to this sentence, so here it is: Allegedly.
Play it again: The whole thing is honestly worth a listen but the novelty wears thin pretty quickly
Skip it: Trying to learn how to play “Stairway” on guitar. Seriously, you’re like at least three decades too late at this point
4. Ox (2009)
“This next one is a new one” might be one of the most feared sentences to be uttered by a band. Everyone loves a reunion, and getting the band back together is almost always a good idea. It’s when the decision to make new music comes into play that things get sketchy. Luckily this reunion release mostly came with the goods but at 14 songs it starts to lose the plot a little bit. Points awarded though for the cover design. The geometric shapes that have the word “Ox” hidden in them are a nice departure from the Photoshop vomit that was on their earlier work and that plagued almost every band in the late ‘90s.
Play it again: “Wild Ox Moan”
Skip it: “By What We Refuse”
3. Functioning on Impatience (1998)
If you are friends with someone who is of a certain age and is into this era of hardcore go text them right now “WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT FROM ME.” No seriously go do it, we’ll wait. If they don’t immediately reply with “SOME SORT OF APOLOGY” block them forever because they are frauds. A couple guitar riffs here come dangerously close to being nu-metal but I’ll let it slide since there were no Adidas tracksuits or white guy dreadlocks involved.
Play it again: “You Can’t Kill Us All,” “A Disgust For Details”
Skip it: “Reoccuing Ache Of” It’s 2023 and no one has the attention span to sit through a 10-second TikTok video so you’re certainly not going to listen to two minutes of experimental discordant nonsense
2. 0:12 Revolution in Just Listening (1999)
Maybe the only good thing to happen with Coalesce covering all those Zeppelin songs is that they came out the other end of it with some grooviness added to their repertoire. James Dewees must’ve gotten all the jokiness out of his system after doing his first Reggie and the Full Effect album because he is throwing down some serious ass drumming. I’m guessing they had a few extra dollars for the recording budget since this was on Relapse because it is their best-sounding album. Sometimes selling out is waking up.
Play it again: “What Happens On The Road Always Comes Home” This is the theme song to going into a blind rage and punching coworkers in the face. At least that’s what I told the HR woman after I got fired from Chili’s
Skip it: “Cowards.com” Don’t get me wrong, it rips, but having “dotcom” in a song title is peak early 2000s cringe. If they wrote the song in 2013 it would have been called “Hashtag Cowards”5
1. Give Them Rope (1997)
This album starts off at full speed from the first second. No feedback, no intro, no quiet whisper talking, or a creepy sample from an old violent movie. Just straight into dirty, blistering anger that doesn’t let up for a moment. Lyrically it gets a little iffy at times. Like in “Have Patience” Ingram seems to be mad about Charles Darwin for some reason? But honestly, just turn the little mic icon off on Spotify and enjoy because you can’t understand what he’s saying anyway.
Play it again: Every abrasive second
Skip it: Getting sucked into a debate about evolution in the comments section of this article
Personally, I find this to be the least likely scenario, but that’s exactly why God, if he does exist, is probably pissed. If I’m gonna get smote I don’t wanna be wearing a lame shirt with buttons on it.
I don’t wanna be all “You ever think about that man?!” but like, you ever think about that, man? If our entire existence is a computer-generated lie how would we know? And it stands to reason that if this is a simulation it could all end at a keystroke or pulling of a plug in the real world. It’s just like “The Matrix,” or that TV movie “World on a Wire” from the ‘70s. Oh, you’ve never seen “World on a Wire?” I have. Then again, I don’t have a job.
For all we know they’ve already found their Caesar and are amassing their forces as we speak. I’m pretty sure the Lawgiver isn’t gonna give a crap whether or not I can use Microsoft Excel.
What if the building blocks of the universe have an expiration date? How would we know until every solid thing starts to erode and crumble? When that happens do you want to be trying to impress some dork who manages a shipping warehouse, or do you wanna be beating Donkey Kong Country again loaded on bong hits and Utz cheeseballs?
It’s just floating up there, a giant rock the size of our country, and we’re just supposed to trust that it stays put? If the moon falls down, which could theoretically happen at any second, we’re all pretty much toast. It would be like that movie “Moonfall!” I think. Gotta be honest even with unlimited time on my hands I never found time to watch “Moonfall.”
That’s right, there are volcanoes on the earth so big that if they blow up we would all die. How any living person can sit with that knowledge in their head and still muster the will to say “Thank you for calling Verizon customer support, how can I help you today?” is beyond me.
At one point all matter in the universe was condensed into one object the size of a thimble and then exploded in an event known as the big bang. We still don’t really know how matter got condensed like that in the first place, so why are we so certain that it won’t happen again? Maybe that’s all the universe does, just contracts and explodes like waves on a cosmic beach. But I digress. You asked where I see myself in 5 years?
At any given moment the polarity of the earth could switch, literally turning our world upside down and flinging us all into space in the process. The only reason they haven’t made a movie about it is because the movie would be over in like two seconds.
It’s the hottest year on record, so you gotta wonder how much longer those polar ice caps can really hold. Sure some of us might survive in some “Waterworld” type scenario (you’ve never seen “Waterworld?”) but those survivors will just succumb to ancient bacteria that’s been trapped in the ice for thousands of years. Long story short, Costco won’t survive, even if they do start at $15 an hour.
Sort of like the simulation scenario but with a trippy “St. Elsewhere” twist. Wait, you’ve never seen “St. Elsewhere?” Wow, I’ve watched so many more things than you, weird.
Ten years ago this seemed a lot more far-fetched, but between the recent uptick in sightings, declassified Navy videos, and government whistleblowers coming out of the woodwork, the prospect of Earth being invaded by extraterrestrials seems more when than if. For all we know my video game skills could be what saves us, like in the movie “The Last Starfighter.” You haven’t seen it? Man, what do you do all day?
It’s pretty obvious that people are getting crazier out there. Every mass shooting, vehicular slaughter, and celebrity Presidential nomination brings us closer and closer to the tipping point. Take it from a guy who has had the free time to watch every Purge movie and every season of “The Walking Dead” at least twice, the greatest threat is man.
We all saw what a piss-poor job the world’s governments did at handling Covid, imagine how hard they’ll drop the ball if a zombie outbreak happens. Diseases are mutating all the time, and all it would take is some version of rabies that works a teensy bit faster to wipe us all out. Surely you’ve seen some of the many, many movies that illustrate my point. Not as many as me, an unemployed leech living it up in his mom’s basement, but some.
The sun is unpredictable, coma, man. At any given moment old man Apollo could just up and shoot an ark of fire right at us powerful enough to burn our world to a cinder. Even if it’s not big enough to kill us, it could wipe out all of our satellites, destroying our technology in an instant and hurtling the world into chaos. Plus like, references? I barely know anyone.
With all those scientists messing around with all those large hadron colliders and whatnot, it’s pretty much only a matter of time before they start some chain reaction that destroys the world. We’re just one chaotic neutral egghead going “I wonder what this button does” away from a man-made black hole sucking us all into oblivion. Plus this personality assessment is super long and boring. It’s a grocery store, is this really necessary?
First off: This album is really, really good front-to-back. Second off/the dark side: We can’t rank ‘em all last, first, or even fifth, as there are no ties here, and no crying in baseball. Sorry. 2018’s “Simulation Theory” and its subsequent grandiose tour both feature a lot of diversity, positive ‘80s throwbacks that musically shout out “Tron,” general rockage that would make Tom Morello smile, and catchy-ass melodies for the most bitter of bitter bitter bitters. Still, this album had and has the least amount of replay value of the bunch. If you disagree, and we know that at least some or all you will, get up and fight, just not anyone that you’re stronger than. Fun footnote: Once you make it through the full record, dig down, and check out the alternate reality, UCLA Bruin Marching Band, and even acoustic gospel version of these eleven songs; no pressure.
Even though the title track of this potentially overlooked album in the age of oversaturation echoes the now canceled svengali/cult leader/fashion icon/author Marilyn Manson’s biggest hit “A Beautiful Mind,” “Will of the People,” Muse’s most recent and ridiculously, ridiculously diverse full-length album, is NOT their worst album by a one shot. Fact? Opinion! It’s slightly better than its predecessor, and a tad bit worse than the band’s debut. Fact? Liberation! Anyway, two of Muse’s best song titles, and it must be said on record, not best songs, are featured here: the dark like the day “You Make Me Feel Like It’s Halloween,” and the light like the night “We Are Fucking Fucked.” The album cover showcasing both an homage to “Planet of the Apes” and a bastardized version of Mount Rushmore would make a good t-shirt at the La Brea Tar Pits gift shop as well.
Prove yourself: “Showbiz” haters will say that it sounds exactly like Radiohead, especially the band’s earlier, more rocking, and less hipster-y stuff, and its lovers will likely say exactly the same, but will still have an affinity for it… Despite being partially optimistic and in limbo, what a freaking let down with no surprises! Still, regardless of whether you’re in lust, faith, or dreams with Muse’s lone studio album from Prince’s favorite year AND last century, you can’t deny that it’s their first one! Well, you can, and many of you plebs will, but you shouldn’t. There’s something in the water (does not compute) and we’re not optimistic. Back to 1999’s “Showbiz”: Musicians and “musicians” reading here, just check out the intro from the tune in our “play it again” section; it’s nasty in a WWF way and not in a spoiled and crusty one.
Panic station in the form of a caps-lock inquiry sans grammar: “HOW DID THIS ALBUM GET RANKED HIGHER THAN SHOWBIZ WTF AM I DUMB WA WA WA?” To that, we respond with normal syntax because we have at least a second-grade reading ability and/or a bachelor’s degree in English from an accredited university that we didn’t get into because of our parents’ connections: Make your own damn list, animals. Another opinion worth mentioning that may inspire violence on your end: “Survival,” the band’s song from the fucking Olympics, is the band’s catchiest and most aurally pleasing single, and you can find it at track number five on 2012’s “The 2nd Law.” We will hopefully not perish on that hill. While haters will say that Muse made a shitty EDM album, true fans know that the band blends genres better than most, and that this album is stadium worthy.
“Drones,” another Muse album that you likely missed due to you being a dumbass, is their best album post-2009, and it is easily the band’s hardest rocking effort in their expansive and expensive catalog. You may not think that that is much of a compliment, but the band released four full-lengths after 2009, and all of them were good in their own way, and better than you in all. Don’t @ us if you disagree, but also please @ us if you do. Also, drill sergeants are scary, and Hoobastank also let us know the same on their oft-undiscussed 2006 LP “Every Man For Himself;” at least we’re moving forward. In a random seemingly pretentious but not really random or pretentious annotation to end this section, Muse singer/guitarist/pianist/deity Matt Bellamy shares a co-write with composer Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina on this album’s closing/title track. (Have) mercy!
WE could be wrong, we CAN’T be wrong: 2009’s “The Resistance” is Muse’s most successful album, and it truly shows in its eleven fantastic songs that take each listener on a Space Mountain-esque peak-and-valley adventure minus the vomit. The band started this LP with a high-quality one-two-three punch featuring three of its four singles and also pulled a Coheed and Cambria comic book-worthy one-two-three kick in sonic AF glory with the closers. Like C&C lead singer Zach de la Rocha once sang/screamed/rapped/alluded to on Circa Survive’s “Vheissu,” one literally needs an overture to cross-pollinate, and will subsequently beg the bugs for redemption. Back to “The Resistance:” The band self-produced this effort, and sometimes when groups do such, the production suffers in the egotistical worst way, but not here! No, no, no. In closing and opening, the following three albums have zero “skip it” tracks!
Revelation sans a black hole: This 2006 LP is definitely the one that shot Muse into the stratosphere stateside in a then-modern form of The British Invasion, and we U.S. Americans will take it with an extra side of saturated fats! Recorded at FIVE different studios, which at first glance makes it look like an ‘80s hair metal record without the lobster, cocaine, escargot, and champagne budget, “Black Holes and Revelations” is the band’s first full-length to be put into the famous-even-to-famous-people Queen category, and you can take that smart posit however you want, just tip your bartender and stop drooling. Also, it’s difficult to find an album closer as revered, hummable, powerful and grandiose as “Knights of Cydonia,” which the band also epically starts some shows with as well. In closing, the drumming on this album from Dominic Howard needs far more fanfare; it’s utterly supermassive here.
Muse’s second album “Origin of Symmetry” is in second place here, and you know we’re right whilst feeling good about this placement even if you don’t; if you don’t, don’t. Hot take alert: If tracks 1-5, five of the best sequential songs of all time, were repeated as tracks 6-10, citizen erased the original 6-11, and then the album just stopped, it would’ve been the winner here. Yep! Anyway, 2001 was a great year for mainstream rock with Jimmy Eat World’s “Bleed American,” Incubus’ “Morning View,” and System of a Down’s “Toxicity” and Muse’s sophomore effort here can effortlessly hang with all of the above in a non-awkward manner. Still, we still can’t figure out why “Origin of Symmetry” connected with SO many outside of America, yet didn’t here when it came out. Basically, it was a futurism grower-not-a-shower in the states. Better late than never, eh? Don’t answer that!
This is the story of a girl who cried a river and drowned the whole world: Bass guitar fans in the know bow down to Chris Wolstenholme in every way, and especially on his work on “Absolution,” but rock heads should make this 2003 LP their protective blanket for the upcoming apocalypse, which Muse politely asked for in typical European fashion. Absolutely. Absolution-ly. Absolut Vodka. Anyway, If Muse released just one album as is, this one should be it. The small print that should be larger, bolded and italicized: There is not a second wasted on Muse’s third LP, which normally is strictly given to those with a hairy tummy, but this one somehow appeals to the bare-chested! In fact, it does so endlessly! To close this piece out, we like it when bands have “Intro” and “Interlude” tracks. Dive into “Absolution,” and give us your heart and your soul!
Kicking things off with Myst, the mysterious (get it? The 1990s were stupid) deserted island world full of talking books and complicated, deeply boring puzzles that are somehow supposed to be more fun than doing sword stuff. There’s pretty much no one on Myst, so we’d probably survive for a long time until we stumbled into the water while trying to catch a fish and drowned.
Daventry is your pretty standard, off-the-rack fantasy kingdom from the King’s Quest game, and we think we’d do pretty well. Nothing happens to anyone who isn’t a member of the Royal Family, which seems pretty classist but still suits us fine.
Oh yeah, we’d last a while, stomping on Toad’s head, throwing fireballs at turtles, and doing basically everything we’ve ever dreamed. Eventually, Bowser would eat us, though. He’d probably start with our feet or some weird shit, too. He seems like a freak.
Like a dragon is going to eat us when Goofy is standing right over there with Chirithy, and you know he’s got some meat on his bones. Wise up, Goofy always dies first. That’s basically all that Goofy is, cannon fodder.
Disney came up with this world, but modern-day wimp Disney, not “Black Cauldron,” terror Disney. We could probably last a few days before dying of frostbite or being stabbed to death with Olaf’s nose. At least we wouldn’t have to sing any songs.
Oh, the Shadow Lord has the island of Deltora in a crushing grip of economic freefall and political repression? Give us a fucking break, we’re already doing way worse than that here, at least they’re on an island.
You might not think it, but the land of My Little Pony actually has a lot of dragons. However, they’re mostly concerned with friendship and fun, and as long as we could prove we’re not some kind of Brony pervert, we’d be fine for a long-ass time.
Xanth is basically magical Florida, with all the barely-veiled misogyny and not-at-all-veiled child abuse that implies. We wouldn’t last long here because we would gladly ask a dragon to bite our head to get out of this Chameleon-spelling hellhole.
The world of “Howl’s Moving Castle” is constantly at war, but also, the worst witch in the entire kingdom doesn’t have anything better to do than fuck with a hatmaker. We’d do fine here as long as we don’t fall in love with a mysterious wizard and get squashed by his castle, which we definitely would.
A galaxy far, far away seems pretty far down on this list for a place with laser swords and spaceships piloted by howling dog-men, but it really feels like as long as you mind your own business and stay out places described as “wretched hives of scum and villainy,” you’d do fine. Also, we would have given those droids up in a heartbeat if it meant a few Imperial Credits in our weird belt pouch.
This place is just too goofy to be really dangerous, even if it is full of dangerously random magic and giant elephants on top of turtles. Chances are we’d be torn apart by an enraged orangutan for spilling Yoohoo on a library book before a dragon got us. We’d probably still show up in a sequel, though.
Look, if dumbass Robin Williams can survive in the jungle when he was a spoiled rich kid, we think we’ll be able to last quite a long time. Double goes for Kevin Hart, because if it were actually dangerous in Jumanji, something would be eating his fucking guts right now.
We won’t mince words: Hyrule can be pretty freaky. That weird moon face in “Majora’s Mask” freaked us out for weeks, and we’re not going to pretend that Ganon’s pig-guy form didn’t make us lay off the Cheetos for a few days. But, ultimately, Hyrule has waaay too convoluted of continuity for us even to know what we are going to get killed by. A demon from another universe? A dude who wants to bring back another dude, but it turns out he’s the soul of a sword somehow? Pick a lane, Hyrule.
Okay, in Earthsea, there’s so, so, so many dragons. Like, this place is lousy with dragons, but they’re the kind where if you figure out what their name is, you can just be like, “Hey, don’t eat me,” and they have to do it. Oh, they want to eat you. They want to. But they can’t, because you know their stupid dragon name!
Is there such a thing as a Transformers dragon? Of course there fucking is, and Stanley Tucci made it kill a bunch of Saxons in the Fifth Century, but, as far as we know, there are no dragons on Cybertron, the machine world of the Autobots. We’d still probably get run over by a jeep that has a surfer accent or a racist-coded motorcycle or something, though.
The Labyrinth couldn’t even stop a whiny 16-year-old girl. While we’re no Jennifer Connelly, we’re also pretty sure we could beat up David Bowie if push came to shove. Worst case scenario: we get lost, and we end up eating Hoggle and using goblins for firewood to stay warm.
God, this one is depressing. We could probably last a bit of time in Terabithia because we’re grown-ass adults, and this place only kills children without self-preservation instincts. Wait, what if the children that are killed are actually our own innocence, and we’re already dead? No, that’s stupid. We’ll be fine here.
Now we’re starting to get into some gorgeously realized, carefully world-built deathtraps! Yeah, the “How to Train Your Dragon” world has a lot of dragons, and we’d almost certainly get killed after we covered ourselves in loose wool to pretend to be sheep. For…our own reasons. That or the Vikings would kill us because of the sheep thing.
A remote island filled with talking dinosaurs who survived extinction and have built a magnificent civilization of harmonious peace and advanced technology sounds good, but at the end of the day, some T. Rex is going to get tired of the lizard equivalent of tofu and swallow us whole. It’s just what’s going to happen, get used to it.
We’re not going to last all that long on this desolate version of Mars because a world in which a racist-ass Confederate soldier becomes a hero is probably not going to be all that hospitable to us. We’d probably accidentally mention that slavery was abolished in America, and a Green Martian would rip off our heads or something.
Honestly, we think we’d be fine in the world of Albion from the “Fable” games because you can do anything you want there except be a non-White person. It would probably be pretty easy just to hide out beneath a rock someplace while everyone else is trying to kill their father’s murderer like the game designers just expected us to have never seen “The Princess Bride.”