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| Muse |
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 Line-up:Matthew Bellamy (guitar, piano, vocals and lyrics) Chris Wolstenholme (bass, backing vocals) Dominic Howard (drums) "Muse are a British rock band who blend many different genres of music together - combining classical, modern and even Latin themes into songs. They formed in Teignmouth, Devon in 1994. "
-- wikipedia.org
"... Muse are a technically proficient band who have proved their ability, through over-exposure, in knocking out catchy number after number."
-- Alan Baban, cokemachineglow.com, 7/06
1999: Showbiz  Just click here! to send us your review of this album.  2001:
Origin of Symmetry"Bellamy emphasizes the two most personal elements of his music on 'Origin of Symmetry': the guitar noise (feedback, fuzz, droning) and his hyper-emotional, quasi-operatic singing. Add the piano, that is rapidly becoming his favorite instrument, and the result is a curious blend of post-grunge cliches (best summarized in Citizen Erased) and timbric hallucination (Hyper Music). There are cool ideas in Plug in Baby, New Born, Space Dementia, Darkshines, but they tend to repeat themselves to death, and one suspects the (limited) technical skills of the trio are to blame for it."
-- Piero Scaruffi, scaruffi.com
  ¾ 2003:
Absolution"The trio started out with 'Showbiz', a beautiful imitation of Radiohead's sound that had enough sincerity to be soulful and beautiful within its own right. Its rocking moments gave prospects of a band that could go beyond the sounds of its predecessors. Then they made the big mistake of actually talking trash about the band by whose sounds they are so obviously influenced, and the respect for Muse has gone downhill from there. But the band's stuck, playing some of the most energetic shows all across Europe (so I hear) and developing their own unique entity. 'Absolution' starts to unleash this sound, furiously intense and very dramatic, borrowing heavily from Queen just as much as Radiohead, all with an intense orchestraic symphonies that suck every inch of emotion out of the listener. Muse don't like to play the games of metaphors and cryptic messages such as that other "paranoid" band. Muse brings it all out, yelling out since the get go, 'This is the end/This is the end/of the wooooorld.' Muse take themselves and the world's situation very seriously, unleashing passion out of every single instrument they use -- beautiful pianos, heavy guitars, melodramatic balladry. Oh yes, this album will wear you out, but when you listen to songs like Butterflies & Hurricanes you will not mind being worn out: 'change, everything you are and everything you were/ your number has been called/ fights and battles have begun/ revenge will surely come/ your hard times are ahead.' Heavy messages with strange stops for classical piano to make you think of Chopin, and just when you are beginning to reflect, the band kicks you in the ass with some hard rock 'n' roll."
-- Arturo Perez, kludgemagazine.com
 2006:
Black Holes & Revelations "... Take A Bow uses the repeated and shifted arpeggio as the basic structural material for its slow-building explosion. Just past the midway point the arpeggio flies into double time, ushering in the first of several guitar-laden crescendos. Exhilarating. Somehow glammy and sinister at the same time. When Muse's 'Absolution' hit U.S. ears, the band was --somewhat unfairly-- compared to Radiohead. I was guilty of this. Still, given singer Matthew Bellamy's penchant for drawing out syllables over multiple and/or elongated notes, the Thom Yorke similarity was tough to ignore. This new release moves Muse away from that common ground. For one thing, the lyrics are far less opaque than Radiohead's. The aforementioned Take A Bow is fairly obviously an impassioned jab at the failings of world leaders, perhaps one in particular. Hey, if me, Mr. LyricsComeLast, can perceive this... Musically, 'Black Holes & Revelations' seems comfortable taking on the more arty side of things (the King Crimson brutality of Assassin) as well as the darkly moody Voodoo. Squarely in the middle are the popish Starlight, the glam-draped Supermassive Black Hole, and the waltz-time Soldier's Poem -- with beautiful vocal harmonies recalling Queen."
-- Mark Saleski, blogcritics.org, 8/06
½
2009:
The Resistance
Tracklisting: 1. Uprising 2. Resistance 3. Undisclosed Desires 4. United States of Eurisia (+Collateral Damage) 5. Guiding Light 6. Unnatural Selection 7. MK Ultra 8. I Belong to You (+Mon Coeur S’oUVRE A Ta Voix) 9. Exogenesis : Symphony Part I (Overture) 10. Exogenesis : Symphony Part II (Cross Pollination) 11. Exogenesis : Symphony Part III (Redemption) "Having mastered electro-prog, surf-prog, and prog-prog with 2006’s relentless, stone-faced dialectic on alien invasion, 'Black Holes & Revelations', they turn to the next logical ladder rung of pretension: symphony. And they may have finally found the perfect category to fuse with their ever-swooping brand of rock. Singer-guitarist Matt Bellamy has composed film scores and is no stranger to overblown calls for revolution, so when he wails, “We will be victorious!” on The Resistance’s opener, Uprising, it’s hardly a surprise—his band has been making soccer anthems for nearly a decade. But by the time the Queen-ish United States of Eurasia (+ Collateral Damage) begins, a new wrinkle appears. As Bellamy completes a chant of “Eura-SI A-SI A-SI A,” an interpolation of Chopin’s Nocturne No. 2 in E Flat begins, and that’s just a hint of the three-headed Cerberus to come. The Exogenesis symphonic triad that closes the album is perhaps the most ridiculous bit of self-serious posturing since Rick Wakeman’s The Six Wives of Henry VIII. But it’s fun! And Bellamy -- long derided as a Thom Yorke sound-alike -- has had an epiphany in embracing his inner snob."
-- Sean Fennessey, spin.com, 9/09
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