Muse
– Black Holes and Revelations
By the time Black Holes and Revelations landed, Muse had given up pretending they were just a rock band. This was their rocket ride into space opera territory, all synth-soaked bombast and apocalyptic flair. Matt Bellamy isn’t singing songs—he’s issuing proclamations from the helm of a dystopian star cruiser. There’s paranoia, love, revolution, and a lot of fuzz. The album doesn’t shy away from drama. It bathes in it, rolls around in it, then sets the whole thing on fire for good measure.
Best of…
This record is ridiculous in the best possible way. It’s political without being didactic, emotional without groveling, and musically indulgent without losing its pulse. Muse threads Italian futurism through Queen theatrics, throws in some Ennio Morricone desert swagger, and glues it all together with synthesizers and anxiety. The band’s confidence is radioactive. They swing for the fences every track, and even the missteps sound like they were made by mad scientists laughing in the lab.
What’s most impressive is how tight it all feels despite the scope. Bellamy’s guitar still shrieks like a siren in heat, but it’s the rhythm section that keeps things grounded. Chris Wolstenholme’s bass lines move like snakes through the arrangements, while Dom Howard’s drumming punches through the noise like he’s trying to wake the gods. Black Holes and Revelations is a sci-fi fever dream with a stadium-sized heartbeat—and it’s the moment Muse decided they’d rather aim for the moon than settle for cult status.
Choice Tracks
Take a Bow
A swirling, furious build-up that feels like a countdown to annihilation. Synths pulse like radiation alarms while Bellamy delivers a venom-laced indictment of unchecked power. It’s grand, unsettling, and an overture for the chaos to come.
Starlight
The softest missile in their arsenal. It’s tender, catchy, and somehow still immense. Bellamy croons like a romantic trapped on a spaceship with no return. A love song wrapped in cosmic regret, pulsing with piano and longing.
Supermassive Black Hole
Funk from another galaxy. Slithering bass, falsetto vocals, and a beat that sounds like Prince got zapped by a death ray. This track is sleazy, strange, and seductive in all the right ways. It shouldn’t work—but it absolutely does.
Map of the Problematique
This one’s a synth-drenched panic attack with a disco spine. It throbs, it aches, it spirals. The melody is pure desperation, and the production keeps pushing it further into beautifully artificial territory. Haunting and hypnotic.
Knights of Cydonia
A spaghetti western filtered through sci-fi metal. Surf-rock guitars, galloping drums, and the kind of chorus that would sound right at home on a warship. It’s Muse at their most absurd and glorious. When Bellamy howls “no one’s gonna take me alive,” it’s not a lyric—it’s prophecy.
Black Holes and Revelations is messy, grandiose, and totally committed to its vision. It doesn’t care if you think it’s too much. In fact, it hopes you do—because too much is exactly the point.