Muse. Black Holes And Revelations (2006)

Black Holes and Revelations is the fourth studio album by English rock band Muse, released on July 3, 2006. The album sold 115,144 copies in its first week in the UK, which is more than the first week sales of Muse's previous album, Absolution. Black Holes and Revelations is a BPI double platinum album. The album has political and sci-fi undertones. Matthew Bellamy, the band's frontman, cites influences including Queen, Millionaire, Sly and the Family Stone, Depeche Mode, U2 and classical music from southern Italy.

Black Holes and Revelations has a strong political theme that follows the earlier albums and marks a new direction for the band. It often describes the more controversial elements of this topic, including "unjustifiable war, abusive power, conspiratorial manipulation and populist revolt", and is strongly influenced by the conspiracy theories that are popular amongst the band. Matt Bellamy stated that he finds "the unknown in general a stimulating area for the imagination", and this interest is reflected throughout the album, which features alien invasion (in "Exo-Politics") and rebellious paranoia (particularly during "Assassin"). The album also includes more emotional themes, including regret, ambition and love, again reflecting the romantic style of earlier albums.

The title "Black Holes and Revelations", taken from lyrics in "Starlight", is explained by Matthew Bellamy in his September 2006 interview for Q Magazine: "Black holes and revelations -- they're the two areas of songwriting for me that make up the majority of this album. A revelation about yourself, something personal, something genuine of an everyday nature that maybe people can relate to. Then the black holes are these songs that are from the more... unknown regions of the imagination."

Track listing

All songs written by Matthew Bellamy, Dominic Howard and Chris Wolstenholme unless otherwise noted.

1. "Take a Bow" – 4:35
2. "Starlight" – 3:59
3. "Supermassive Black Hole" – 3:29
4. "Map of the Problematique" – 4:18
5. "Soldier’s Poem" – 2:03
6. "Invincible" – 5:00
7. "Assassin" – 3:31
8. "Exo-Politics" – 3:53
9. "City of Delusion" – 4:48
10. "Hoodoo" (Bellamy/Wolstenholme) – 3:43
11. "Knights of Cydonia" – 6:06
12. "Glorious" (bonus track) – 4:38

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