Black Holes and Revelations

I’ll be honest—I've never been a fan of Muse. This album was always going to be a tough listen for me. I remember Black Holes and Revelations being everywhere when it was released—praised to the skies by the music press. At the time, I just didn’t get it. To me, it sounded overproduced, overblown, and unnecessarily theatrical.

Revisiting it now, almost 20 years later, those feelings still hold up.

There are a couple of standout tracks—Supermassive Black Hole and Knights of Cydonia still hit hard with their bold, dramatic sound. But much of the rest feels like filler: overly polished, lyrically weak, and lacking real storytelling. The band leans heavily on loud, cinematic bombast to carry the songs, which often ends up feeling more like a wall of noise than meaningful music.

Favourite track: Supermassive Black Hole and Knights of Cydonia – they’re solid, memorable tunes.
Least favourite: Assassin – sounds like polished noise with whiny vocals and no real substance but I could have picked 6 other songs as the worst.
Album artwork: I’ll give credit where it’s due—very cool cover.

"Hey guys - what if we mixed the pretentiousness of Radiohead with the blandness of Coldplay?"
"Yeah that sounds good but let's change it just a little so we don't get in trouble..."
Pretty sure that's how Muse got started. I mean the songs are decent I guess. I don't really have any complaints but I also don't have any praise to give. Supermassive Black Hole was sooo overplayed and I can't really stand it now. And to me, that's the mark of a bad song. And I don't like the way Matt Bellamy sings. Not like the tone of his voice but they way he sings the words is irritating. Like he stretches out the sounds in a way that is off putting. Hard to explain.
Well, 2.5/5 on this one and I fail to see why it is on this list. Gonna round down.

I came across Muse at some point via Radiohead and Placebo. I was quickly very thrilled. I haven't listened to this album in its entirety yet, although it contains one of my top favorites, Supermassive Black Hole. I am very enthusiastic about the album. 5/5

Perfectly at the cross-section of prog, pop, rock, and electronica. Pulls off the almost impossible task of being both catchy and creative.

4.5/5.0: Excellent

I had heard quite a few of these tracks. I always thought the instrumentals were cool, but never liked his singing. Still a pretty good album overall

Es ist ein Meisterwerk des alternativen Rocks, durchzogen von kosmischen Themen und experimenteller Kühnheit. Dieses vierte Studioalbum, veröffentlicht im Jahr 2006, zeigt die Ambitionen der Band mit bombastischen Klängen, komplexen Texten und einem Gefühl von Größe.

Mit Tracks wie "Starlight" und "Supermassive Black Hole" beweist Muse ihr Händchen für eingängige Melodien und genreübergreifende Klänge, die spacige Atmosphären mit tanzbaren Rhythmen verbinden. "Knights of Cydonia", das ikonische Finale, ist ein sechsminütiges Epos mit Western-Vibes, treibenden Beats und eindringlichen Vocals—ein perfekter Abschluss für ein Album, das vor Drama nur so strotzt. Gerne mal wiederhören.

rock para técnicos de informática que tem tatuagens demais.

muse é basicamente a parte mais barulhenta do radiohead, né. achei que seria bem pior. knights of cydonia ganha 1 estrela apenas por guitar hero 3.

its a fun listen, i’d definitely return to it

that guys voice is a lot. . . band seems decent tho

maybe better as an instrumental album?

I didn't like this almost 20 years ago when it came out, it just didn't click with me but I still liked "Supermassive Black Hole" but re-stumbling upon it about 15 years ago made me like it, I could put it on and there would be no skips. But then I stopped again and now it's nice to come back to but it might be the zenith of Muse, pretentious lyrics and guitar wankery goes hard here...

That said, "Exo-Politics" rocks, even with the conspiracy shit...

Це, мабуть, єдиний альбом мьюз, який мені по-справжньому подобається, колись я навіть купив собі платівочку.

Їх "прог" період, але не крінжовий і без зайвого копіювання квін. Knights of cydonia - гімн боротьби.

Some Muse albums get quite annoying, but this album contained a lot of good songs. I like it

Frenetic and energetic, it's a fun album!

I was a big fan of the first two Muse records and thought everything afterwards was watered down for the American market. But over time I’ve come to appreciate some of the tracks on this one and its predecessor a bit. There’s also a lot of horrible cheese on this one too though.

Muse is a band that hotboxes themselves with their own farts

So many bangers. A lot of artist would kill for this album to be the greatest hits of their careers.
Cautionary tale: Just because you love Muse, doesn't mean you should choose a song by them for karaoke.. Especially not if the song is Supermassive Black Hole... RIP eardrums of people in the bar in Copenhagen back in 2012ish..

I think this is a great album, Muse is one of my favorite 2000's era bands. Not every track is great, but the album is driving start to finish, interesting mixes, and I do like the vocals.

This album is unfortunately what I consider the beginning of the end for Muse. You've got far more political topics sneaking into the lyrics, the whole thing has an extremely "daytime rock radio" vibe going on save for a few tracks, and the general synth undertones really hammer in the feeling Muse would continue to awkwardly explore nearly twenty years later. However, do not mistake my words of sadness as an adverse reaction to the music on this album, because while this may be the start of something worse, it is also the end of something amazing in the best way possible. Every song walks this fine line between pop rock and alternative rock immaculately, and when it takes time to slow down and let the band (Matt, in particular) show off their musical chops, it succeeds with flying colors. The commanding piano riff in Hoodoo, the solo of Invincible, and the choir in Soldier's Poem, all perfectly showing the immense talent the band posses even on their senior outing. Even the more synth pop-esque takes are solid, almost Depeche Mode-like, runs that fill a perfect hole in a modernized 80s heart. This album has a lot of commercial moments, Starlight, Supermassive Black Hole, and the magnificent closer, Knights of Cydonia, you couldn't escape at the time, but they don't feel like massive blockbusters for the sake of it, they just happened to be, on top of being some of the premier rock hits of the late 2000s. This album may be the sound they'd fail to perfect as time went on, but they didn't need to, because they nailed it on the first try, and I'm satisfied with seeing it close here. Just a fantastic collection of songs, you're bound to find something you enjoy here.

For the life of me I could not remember the song Supermassive Black Hole. The song has 600 million streams on Spotify, and it was in the movie Twilight. I should know it but I don’t, and after listening to this album and replaying that song two more times. I still don’t remember the song. This album is basically just a cross between early Radiohead and U2. I would probably rather listen to either of those two, but I can’t really fault them for playing to what works. Favorite songs were Starlight, Assassin, and Knights Of Cydonia.

This one gets a big ol’ “meh” from me.

3/5