BRITISH trio Muse have just released their fifth album - the bombastic and operatic
The Resistance - so it's as good a time as any to look back at what took this initially dismissed group from being a cult rock act to a chart-topping, stadium-filling superband.
Right from the beginning, Muse offered a sense of melodrama with their music, driven by Matthew Bellamy astonishing falsetto and post Morello-guitar effects work.
Here are their first four studio albums, plus a live album that captures their killer stage shows in full swing.
Showbiz (1999)
THE music press had their knives out on Muse from the start, dismissing them as the ugly offspring of Radiohead and Queen. The fourth estate has since changed its tune (this album pops up on a lot of `best of' lists now) but early fans heard something new and exciting in lead singles Uno and Muscle Museum, both bass-riff-heavy alt-rock tunes with eye-opening guitar sounds, topped off by a peculiar wail that vibrated and soared. Yes, there were elements of Radiohead and Queen, particularly on Sober and Cave, but there are lots of worse bands to be compared to.
Origin Of Symmetry (2001)
WHERE their debut was filled with razored guitars and the raucous sound of three guys making more noise than they had any right to make, Origin Of Symmetry unveiled Muse's prog leanings and love of classical music. Bellamy, it turned out, could play piano as good as he could play guitar and demonstrates it on the Rachmaninov-influenced mini-opera Space Dementia, dramatic closer Megalomania and a deliciously over-the-top cover of Nina Simone favourite Feeling Good. He still fires up his axe, soloing like a jackhammer on New Born, conjuring up some dirty future-funk on Hyper Music and riffing with the best of them on Plug In Baby.
Hullaball oo (2002)
WHILE Bellamy is the idiosyncratic showman captaining Muse, this live CD/DVD plus bonus b-sides disc demonstrates the skills of engine room Dominic Howard (drums) and Chris Wolstenholme (bass). Recorded live in Paris, it captures the band on the brink of stardom, when they were still young and fresh, according to the band. The live set features awesome single-only tracks Dead Star and In Your World, while the b-sides disc carries some hidden treasures including the spacey Hypermusic-reworking Hyper Chondriac Music, the should-have-been-a-single Recess and the whimsically antique-sounding Map Of Your Head.
Abs olution (2003)
MUSE put their hand up for stardom on this album, which finally saw them get the production and studio time their grandiose songs demanded. From the opening end-of-the-war battle hymn Apocalypse Please to symphonic closer Ruled By Secrecy, this is a knock on the door of the big leagues, filled with almost as many colours as Black Holes & Revelations. The songs in between include some of their best - the irresistible groove of Time Is Running Out, the machine gun-riffing and insanity of Stockholm Syndrome and Hysteria, and the sweeping grandeur of Blackout.
Black Holes & Revelations (2006)
PERHAPS their finest achievement, this pushed their sound to its limits. The electro anti-George W. opener Take A Bow was a hell of a starting point and only topped for pomp and prog by epic spaghetti western-space opera Knights Of Cydonia. On Supermassive Black Hole they were likened to Prince, Starlight and Invincible were anthemic rock ballads as only Muse could do, and they still had time to get the metal out for the break-neck Assassin, the latter of which features the skills of Howard to the fore. A worldwide number one, this album got them the kudos they deserved.
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