muse

Every single album can be highly recommended, especially at these rates. Melodramatic sounds, catchy at times, often rather dark - and overall the voice of Matthew Bellamy, which makes it very special. Also on their actual record "black holes and revelations" nearly every song is of high quality. So, even if you can hear a lot of influences from other bands in this music - these guys just know how to rock.

One can't listen to Muse without hearing Bends-era Radiohead, so it's necessary to start there. But for all the familiar grandeur and gloom, Muse's other catharsis-rock influences, like Queen, Slade, and even Black Sabbath, provide the band with a dazzling, heart-on-their-sleeves theatricality. Always threatening to layer on another falsetto from singer Matt Bellamy, or conjure more guitar crunch from the ether, Absolution is downright Baroque in parts, like a Rufus Wainwright-penned rock opera fantasy. When these guys let it rip, there's no doubt they have the fever. If you wish a certain Thom Yorke-led outfit from Oxford had made another record or two before evolving into minor-key art rockers, Muse carry the torch for another few miles, gloriously and tragically unaware that they're running in circles - Matthew Cooke

Vinyl can be found here!