В колонках играет - muse-blackout

Lizards' aside, Not-Mad Matt can be found fretting about alien invasions on the new and fourth Muse album, Black Holes and Revelations. It's a sonically mental work of audacious brilliance that variously manages to cram in prog-rock, spaghetti western soundtracks, bludgeoning synths and flamenco guitars.

"It's the sound," proffers Matt descriptively, "of The Matrix and Clint Eastwood. It's like a western on Mars, with laser beams and intergalactic war."

His influences range from Italian folk music and film composer Ennio Morricone to streaming radio from the Middle East fifties sci-fi rock, inspired by The Tornadoes, his father George Bellamy's old band.

First single, Supermassive Black Hole, sees the geeks go chic. Put simply, it's the sound of Muse breaking into the Big Pop Vault and tip-toeing out with Britney Spears' Do Somethin' in a sack marked 'SWAG'.

And it's quite brilliant.

"We felt that was something we'd never investigated before as a band," he says of the their decision to burst out of the musty geek-boy bedroom and into a neon-speckled dancefloor.

"We thought it would be nice to put the emphasis on the groove on some of the songs. We really wanted people to be able to dance to them and do something unexpected even to ourselves. It's more of a dance track, and I'm singing in a silly high voice. (Pauses) I mean, I do sing in a silly high voice quite often but it usually comes off as operatic."

Clearly, Muse have moved on from being written-off all those years ago as a poor man's Radiohead. "We've seen a lot of bands bubble up and disappear," says Matt, who formed the group in 2000 with schoolfriends Dom Howard (drums) and Chris Wolstenholme (bass).