Muse - Standard-bearers of kitsch-rock

Muse are a trio from Teignmouth, England, who broke through thanks to a distinctive sound that combines tender vocal melodies, acid-etched guitars and evocative electronic atmospheres. A formula that revitalizes the anemic pop of Radiohead with a hardcore verve borrowed from bands like Sonic Youth, Nirvana and Rage Against The Machine.

The band was formed in 1999 when Matthew Bellamy (vocals, guitar and piano), Dominic Howard (drums) and Chris Wolstenholme (bass and backing vocals) joined forces. That same year they released the album Showbiz (Mushroom Records), which won over the indie-rock audience (selling over half a million copies) and picked up several critics' awards: "Brand New Band 2000" at the NME Carling Premier Awards, nominations for best band and best album at the Q Awards, and best band and best live act at the Kerrang Awards. The band caught the attention of several international labels, including Madonna's Maverick, which signed them in the United States.
Critics immediately crowned them heirs to the guitar-sound that Radiohead had since scattered into electronic digressions. But there were also those who likened them to the poetic, intimate songwriting of Jeff Buckley. Yet for Matthew Bellamy, the band's leader, Muse's influences were completely different: "We love Rage Against The Machine and Primus, we grew up listening to alternative bands like Sonic Youth and Dinosaur Jr." Those influences were already audible in ambitious tracks like "Fillip" and (above all) "Sunburn", which pushed beyond the boundaries of the dying Britpop of the late '90s. The band's live performances also buzzed with hardcore energy, unleashing a storm of electric sound onstage: "We go out there alone," Bellamy recalls, "with just our instruments, and anyone who's seen us can vouch that we have the energy of an entire orchestra." It's precisely live, in fact, that Muse prove most compelling, as confirmed by the success of their recent Italian tour, which sold out night after night.
Yet the Britpop tag has proven hard for Muse to shake off. Some have already started mocking them as Radiohead "clones". "Muse's mission is to sound like a genetically modified hybrid of Queen, Jeff Buckley and Radiohead. Have they succeeded?" quipped New Musical Express. And so Bellamy and co. decided to amplify the rock soul of their sound. They openly declared their intention to draw above all on bona fide guitar heroics, from Jimi Hendrix to Nine Inch Nails, via The Police and Nirvana. And alongside their usual producer John Leckie (Radiohead, Stone Roses), they brought in David Bottrill, who had previously worked with A Perfect Circle, Tool and Deus. The turning point came during an American tour that saw Muse opening first for Pavement and Flaming Lips, and later for Red Hot Chili Peppers. Bellamy, electric guitar in hand, delivered blazing performances that often culminated in instrument-smashing worthy of Hendrix himself.

This guitar-driven turn gave birth to the new album Origin Of Symmetry, preceded by the muscular single "Plug In Baby". Recorded at Peter Gabriel's Real World Studios in Bath and aboard Pink Floyd's floating studio on the Thames, it's an album that is both furious and romantic, confirming the British band's talent. The melancholy mood of tracks like "New Born" (“L’amarezza cresce dentro/ come un neonato/ quando hai visto troppo e troppo presto”), "Darkshines" and "Citizen Erased" updates Morrissey's decadent spleen for the new millennium. And the whole record shows off a sound that has become fuller and more varied, tinged with metallic, spacey electronics. NME itself, which had in the meantime crowned them "breakthrough band of 2000", now wrote of them: "Muse have managed to turn their provincial neuroses into a universal idea."

The success of Origin of Symmetry also brought renewed attention to one of the band's earliest works: the intriguing EP Muscle Museum, which highlights Muse's debt to the prog-romanticism of Ultravox's "Quartet". By now the British press was firmly betting on them, alongside Belle and Sebastian, as one of the leading bands of the indie rock scene. But Bellamy remained wary of the pitfalls of show business: "There are plenty of businessmen out there who just squeeze artists dry. And in Britain, the press always exaggerates: one minute they build you up, the next they tear you down. Until recently we weren't taken seriously, maybe because we were too young, but things are starting to change now". So says the new rising star of British rock. A kid born in 1978 who claims to identify with Tom Waits' "Blue Valentine" and loves, beyond all reason, Al Pacino's character in "The Godfather".

Rounding off the first chapter of their career, in 2002 Muse released the double compilation Hullabaloo Soundtrack, gathering together B-sides from the early years (March 1999-October 2001) plus an excerpt from a concert held in Paris.

In 2003 Muse returned with Absolution, an even bigger commercial success that nonetheless partly fell short of critics' high expectations. The hit "Time Is Running Out" drove sales, and the album leans mostly on its heavier, more urgent tracks, such as "Apocalypse Please", "Stockholm Syndrome", "Hysteria", "Butterflies And Hurricanes", and "The Small Print". The more melodic songs, such as "Sing For Absolution" and the evocative "Black Out" (padded out with an overabundance of strings), are decidedly calculated, even if solidly written. There's an obvious striving for a mighty guitar-driven wall of sound, but what really keeps the album's value high is Matt Bellamy's voice, and Absolution can still be counted among the English band's best work - rich in a quality that, from this point on, would start to fade.

The single that launched Black Holes & Revelations (2006) hinted at some reassuring signs: "Supermassive Black Hole", with its visceral riff and deliberately syrupy falsetto, proves to be a modern rock hybrid, hypnotic in its drive, caught between receding echoes and glittering distortion. Unfortunately, though, not all of the album holds to the same standard; the synth that opens "Take a Bow" feels already heard, and the melodic theme is even worse - Muse want to write moving music, but they're not Radiohead. The track does redeem itself, though, in the gripping, tension-filled electronic crescendo that follows. The banal melody of "Starlight" (another massive hit single) rests on a decent underlying blend, marred by the vocal's overly easy appeal. "Invincible", buoyed by a martial rhythm and muted musicality, and "Soldier's Poem", the usual gloomy ballad devoid of any real emotional jolt, leave much the same impression.
Things get more interesting with "Map Of The Problematique", a captivating, well-balanced interplay of guitars and electronics with a spacious sound. "Assassin" is confident rock, a bit laboured in the refrain but reasonably propulsive as it grinds through furious rhythms. The epic riff of "Exo Politics" is among the best on offer, though the same can't be said of its melody, which proves to be the record's main weak point. "City Of Delusion", an elusive mix of synthetic psychedelia and Latin-tinged harmonies, could have been a minor masterpiece in the right hands; "Hoodoo" makes clear that Muse, stripped of Bellamy's plaintive voice, could have even been a reference point for prog-rock.
But sadly not every fairy tale has a happy ending, and we must make do with the six splendid minutes of war transposed into music that make up "Knights Of Cydonia", one of the few moments on this record truly worth remembering. Black Holes & Revelations is a symptomatic album of the band's problems: huge potential squandered in favour of pop-rock tailored for the charts and the big arenas.

H.A.A.R.P. (2008) is a solid summary of their live activity. The tracks come across as energetic and direct, and the absence of the filler that hampers some of their studio work makes this live album essentially the equivalent of a great best-of.

With The Resistance (2009) Muse dare to push further still. The album makes variety and referencing its calling card: the single "Uprising" combines Marilyn Manson and Steppenwolf, "Resistance" rides a slightly trendy U2-style grandiosity, "Undisclosed Desires" attempts to venture into Depeche Mode territory but ends up sounding more like Beyoncé. "Unnatural Selection" and "MK Ultra" are decently punchy tracks, though far from the dance pulse of "Supermassive Black Hole". But the record draws attention, for better or worse, mainly thanks to two overblown pieces: "United States of Eurasia" and "Exogenesis".
The first is the peak of the band's kitsch pomposity: an outright rip-off of "Bohemian Rhapsody", reworked in a dystopian key, extolling the political unity of Eurasia and closing with an instrumental digression on a theme by Chopin. The second is a three-part orchestral suite: the result is mediocre and even somewhat soporific, but it remains a rare case of rock/orchestra fusion where the interplay goes beyond mere call-and-response, pseudo-Bach flourishes, or the crudest string padding. The Resistance is a dark-mooded record (claustrophobic, even) and marks a shift away from the lighter, fairly self-aware tone of Black Holes And Revelations. Unfortunately it's also a very uneven record, lacking real high points and pervaded by an unpleasant patchwork effect - as if the band had written N verses, N choruses and N bridges, and only afterwards worried about how to piece them together.

The 2nd Law (2012) marks a partial deflating of the delusions of grandeur that typically accompany the Muse style: no endless suites, no space-western epics, few classical lifts, and even much less bombast than usual. The trouble lies elsewhere: once you strip away the trimmings and evocative atmospheres in favour of actual pop songs, their music turns out to be flimsy. The great stylistic variety, on paper a strength of the record, ultimately ends up squandered. Unable to get to the core of their own musical language, the trio clings to a garish, "Queen in the Eighties"-style eclecticism, chasing sickly, quasi-Christmas sentimentality ("Explorers", an obvious self-quotation from "Invincible", written a full four years earlier), unsavoury flirtations with the George Michael of "Faith" ("Madness"), and embarrassing, if unintentionally comic, operatic experiments (the Olympic anthem "Survival"). "Save Me" and "Liquid State", written and composed by bassist Chris Wolstenholme, deserve a separate mention: the former is simply unbearably mawkish, the latter sounds like it escaped from a Foo Fighters album, where it really should have stayed.
Confusion reigns - and calling it entropy would be an undeserved endorsement of the album's concept - but a few tracks do survive, if without excelling. Among them, predictably, are the most bombastic: the supremely swaggering "Supremacy" (think Ravel's Bolero laid over a Led Zeppelin-esque "Kashmir"), the Euro-stomping "Follow Me", co-produced by Nero, and the two halves of the title track - the more useless than ugly "Unsustainable", much talked about for its Skrillex-style bass drops, and "Isolated System". The 2nd Law was, in some ways, the hardest album for Muse to make, well aware they'd face the disdain of many either way. Matthew Bellamy and co. didn't care and ploughed straight ahead into nothing. They produced their most static record yet, despite the extreme range of styles tackled, never shying away from that slightly smug attitude that would land them simultaneously in the arms of an ever-growing fanbase and in the jaws of the snobbiest critics.

The seventh album of their discography, Drones, released in June 2015, steers them back toward more strictly guitar-driven paths, unleashing a sonic power that feels like a homecoming. This had already been made abundantly clear by the tracks leaked a few weeks ahead of release, through which fans got to discover the new material - songs that, while not exactly brimming with originality (Muse did all this much better years ago), are pleasant enough listens. Drones is presented as a concept album about questionable policies, imposed by a hypothetical government, centred on brainwashing, the erasure of the individual, and the symbolic takeover of drones. In the trio's vision, this would spark a rebellion with disastrous consequences for the whole of humanity. "Dead Inside", placed at the opening, kicks things off without disgracing itself, making room for the huge riffs of "Psycho" (yes, it really does recall "Personal Jesus") and the U2-style cunning of "Mercy". "Reapers" brings Bellamy's fingerpicking into play, and the following "The Handler" doesn't skimp on dense, electric energy. The second half is on average less aggressive, lining up the negligible "Defector", the cunning of "Revolt", the ballad "Aftermath", the epic scale of "The Globalist" (over ten minutes long, confirming their love of structured pieces) and the choral closing title track.
Having settled into a rhythm of one album every three years, Drones has the flavour of a neatly done homework assignment, turned in by someone talented enough to pass without breaking a sweat: no original ideas (the surprise electronics of the bland "Madness" were almost more striking), no spark that makes you cry miracle (while we're still tearing our hair out in disbelief at yet another listen of "New Born" or "Plug In Baby"). Whether they're a manufactured phenomenon or possessors of extraordinary talent, everyone is free to debate and draw their own conclusions. Muse are probably the best contemporary synthesis of both. The fact remains that "Drones", all things considered, scrapes a pass.

Just when it seemed the game was up, the British trio once again manage to surprise, starting with the cover art of Simulation Theory (created by Kyle Lambert, the artist behind the poster for the TV series "Stranger Things"), which plunges us into synth-wave territory: a cinematic mood, nods to the East and to the Eighties, but at the same time to a dystopian, cyberpunk future painted in blue and magenta.
As for synth-wave understood as a musical genre rather than mere aesthetic, there doesn't seem to be much of it on first listen, but small, distinctive echoes emerge more and more insistently if you pay attention, starting right from the first track, which is also the album's best, "Algorithm". Full-bodied synths accompany touches of piano and violin and Bellamy's thin voice in an exhausting war against "your creator", while the video clip draws as much from "Tron" and "Terminator" as from certain vaporwave in-jokes.
The cross-contaminations are many, perhaps too many. Bellamy, Howard and Wolstenholme showed real nerve embracing so many elements within a single vision: from the forced funk of "Propaganda", with its Skrillex-like robots and Prince-esque quotations, to "Dig Down", whose backing track dangerously recalls "Madness", and, why not, even a few nods to good old rock, complete with epic choruses ("Blockades"). Then there's the very strange "Break It To Me", which rests on its bassline and on atmospheres recalling early-Nineties crossover, while also boasting an Arabic-tinged rhythm. "Thought Contagion", on the other hand, will work wonders live, as shown by the live version included on the Super Deluxe edition. As a largely dispensable (bad) episode, there's "Get Up And Fight", an adolescent power ballad that sounds like it could have come off any post-"Meteora" Linkin Park album, and on which, unfortunately, Bellamy delivers the album's weakest vocal performance. And then there's the delicate country-pop of "Something Human", which, precisely because of its melancholy yearning and simplicity, feels somewhat out of place within such a dense record.
The most interesting moments, besides the already mentioned "Algorithm", are however "The Dark Side", "The Void" and "Pressure". The latter, produced by Timbaland, has the riffs and soul of rock 'n' roll but the heart of warm electronic pop, and is probably the catchiest song they've written since "Panic Station". And, judging by the video, it seems Muse really indulged their love of "Stranger Things" and 80s splatter movies. "The Dark Side" and "The Void" recapture that melancholy, desperate clarity, tinged with hope, that made us fall in love with Muse so long ago, and represent, in this writer's opinion, the perfect synthesis of the new Muse: armed with restless synths, but with the same weltanschauung as always. Now in their forties, perhaps tired of being stuck with the image of rockers, and driven by a creative restlessness that has always pushed them past their own limits, the three have finally found their own fresh, contemporary space in which to channel, with exuberant and ambitious drive, the same old neuroses and paranoias about modern life, the future, escape from reality, and humanity's relationship with technology.

A return to sounds more suited to them is the most significant distinguishing feature of Will Of The People, the English trio's ninth studio album, released in the summer of 2022. A self-produced record that, to dispel any doubt right away, possesses, unmistakably, the full essence of Muse, for better or worse. Bellamy, Howard and Wolstenholme have, for some time now, only been asked to carry on along this hugely successful path of theirs, made up of flamboyant, somewhat kitsch choices - in short, to keep on being recognisable. Unlike what happened on several of their recent records, here little room is left for clumsy attempts to venture into territory that in the past raised huge doubts rather than adding anything of value. The relentless observation of the world around him that Bellamy has always loved to pour into his lyrics tackles, across these ten tracks, current issues ranging from political instability around the world, to the oppression of the weak by the powerful, from natural disasters, to the fears gripping the individual, touching of course on the ever-present pandemic. These thoughts are poured into a sonic cauldron that proves more immediately accessible than before, flowing from start to finish with absolute ease.

The lead singles had already given some hints of this more conventional approach: from the granite-hard riffs of "Won't Stand Down", to the standard patterns of "Compliance", through to the glam rock pot-pourri of the title track. A few decidedly questionable moments crop up along the way, above all the embarrassing "You Make Me Feel Like It's Halloween" (though saved by an excellent video) or "Liberation", an all-too-obvious nod to their beloved Queen, but fortunately there are also some noteworthy moments, such as the pyrotechnic "Kill Or Be Killed", a successful attempt to revive the glories of gems like "Stockholm Syndrome" and similar tracks, or the dark forebodings of "Ghosts (How Can I Move On)", where Bellamy's ever-impeccable voice is this time laid over an intense, effective piano-driven backdrop. From the heartfelt synth-pop call of "Verona", to "Euphoria" - in short, an appendix to "Knights Of Cydonia" - the album reaches its end with great ease, and that's no small feat.

Muse's tenth album, The Wow! Signal, released on 27 June 2026, revives the band's well-tested recipe of sonic maximalism backed by choirs and orchestra, acrobatic guitars, hyper-kitsch grandeur, technical prowess that at times borders on exasperating, and the occasional pleasant electro detour that never lasts quite long enough. All very comfortable for fans who adore their trademark sound, less so for those who can't stand Matt Bellamy and co.'s usual urge toward gigantism and self-reference. From the opening "The Dark Forest" onward, listeners are swept up in the conception of a blockbuster that will accompany them for the next three quarters of an hour. Inside lies the heartbreak over the end of Bellamy's marriage to model and actress Elle Evans (the two have two children together), portrayed through a cosmic parallel: human loneliness as the loneliness of a lost planet, or a meteorite drifting without momentum through outer space.

The most successful moments of "The Wow! Signal", or at least the most immediate and recognisable ones, turn out to be "Cryogen", a direct descendant of "Plug In Baby", one of their fans' most beloved tracks, and "Unravelling", already released as a single as far back as June of last year - two decidedly successful tracks, though they tend to resemble various other songs Muse have already recorded in the past. Amid tracks that start out melancholically intimate before rippling outward as they go ("Shimmering Scars", "Be With You"), their never-dimmed, grandiose passion for prog structures ("Hexagons"), a few dance-funk-oriented detours ("Nightshift Superstar"), riffs and falsettos spilling into power-pop choruses ("The Sickness In You & I"), and even a forgettable guest feature (Ellie Goulding's on "Hush"), "The Wow! Signal" comes across as an enjoyable record that will surely find its true fulfilment in live performance.

Despite a path that is, in some respects, debatable, Muse confirm themselves in the 2020s as one of the few bands still able to fill stadiums the world over, backed by flawless musicianship and a catalogue of hits that sets them apart from many of their contemporaries.

Contributions by Fabio Busi ("Black Holes & Revelations"), Marco Sgrignoli ("The Resistance"), Giulia Quaranta ("Simulation Theory"), Cristiano Orlando ("Will Of The People").

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