About The 2nd Law Album

 Name

The name "The 2nd Law" references the second law of thermodynamics, which is quoted in the album trailer as follow

"All natural and technological processes proceed in such a way that the availability of the remaining energy decreases. In all energy exchanges, if no energy enters or leaves an isolated system, the entropy of that system incre,cre,cre,cre,c,c,creases. Energy continuously flows from being concentrated, to becoming dispersed, spread out, wasted and useless. New energy cannot be created and high grade energy is being destroyed. An economy based on endless growth is...Unsustainable"

New songs

Near the beginning of 2010 Muse indicated they had been working on potentially two new songs, one of which was ready for recording. One was mentioned by Dom in an interview with regard to Muse providing new music for the 2012 Olympic games. This turned out to be Survival. Dom also mentioned a "love song" the band had written originally intended for the Twilight Saga: Eclipse soundtrack, stating that the band "were ready to record" in Australia during the Big Day Out tour. This turned out to be Neutron Star Collision (Love Is Forever)

Later,when Matt was asked whether fatherhood was on his mind, he told MTV: "Yeah, I'm definitely going to bring out the Vibraphone, a lullaby, things like that. I'll definitely get a lullaby on there."This later turned out to be Follow Me.

During the NME Awards 2011, Matt and Dom humorously stated that there would be "a lot of chords" on the album and that Matt already had many ideas flowing through his head, including one song which Dom said sounded very cool already. 

Instrumentation

With information gathered from twitpics, the album is known to feature a brass section and an orchestra. Additionally, Matt has been seen holding a "Kitara", a guitar-shaped synthesizer controller. In an interview with NME Chris said that Matt was talking about "messing with grooves and loops". In an interview with NME in 2011, Matt said he was wanting to introduce some 90's rave into the band. The album will also have a lot of choirs in some songs like Survival. 

Influences

In a interview with Absolute Radio, Matt mentioned the new album may have influences from Justice and DIOYY, and that he was very into the 'hard electronica' sound at the moment.

In an NME article according to Dom the band "went to see Skrillex in Camden around October. We went 'Fuck, it's so heavy', loved it. It was like a full metal gig, they had the circles of death, people were moshing, I hadn't seen a reaction like that to electronic music before. We took inspiration and came up with Unsustainable." Matt added, "Some of that hard dubstep or brostep coming from America is capturing the imagination. The moshpit has moved from guitars and gone towards the laptop, so with that song we're trying to see if we can challenge the laptop. We created something that was dubsteppy but we wanted to see if we could do it with real instruments. We wanted to ask, 'Can rock bands compete with what these guys are doing?'" In the same NME Article, the song Panic Station was described as having "demented 80's elements such as backwards 'Let's Dance' drumbeats and riffs reminiscent of INXS' 'Suicide Blonde'".

Also, in a recent interview Matt revealed that he took influence from "The Dark Knight Rises" composer Hans Zimmer, claiming:"He's the greatest film composer of recent times. That song 'The 2nd Law', you can definitely hear some Hans Zimmer influence." 

Release

On the 6^th June 2012 a movie-style trailer was released for the album featuring music from the album, and announcing the title. It was accompanied by a release date counting down to 17^th September 2012, a Monday, indicative of the UK release date.

On 27^th June 2012 Survival was debuted on Zane Lowe's show on BBC Radio 1. It was confirmed and simultaneously released as the Official Song for the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.

On 30^th July 2012, the artwork for the album was revealed over a selection of 11 images. The final album artwork depicts an image of the Human Brain and all the neurons that make it up. The Image came from the Human Conectome Project.

On 2^nd August 2012, it was announced via Muse's website that the release date of the album had been postponed to the worldwide release date of the 1^st October, and that the song Madness will be released on 20^th of August.

On August 9^th, 2012, Muse made the Deluxe Box of The 2nd Law availible to purchase with the free music video of The 2nd Law: Unsustainable. 

Track list

1. Supremacy
2. Madness
3. Panic Station
4. Prelude
5. Survival
6. Follow Me
7. Animals
8. Explorers
9. Big Freeze
10. Save Me
11. Liquid State
12. The 2nd Law: Unsustainable
13. The 2nd Law: Isolated System

Edited from : http://www.musewiki.org/The_2nd_Law_%28album%29