10 Hard Rock Music Bands That Avoided The Sophomore Slump
7. Origin of Symmetry - Muse
In the years since forming, Muse have always been trying to brush off the comparisons that fans make between them and Radiohead. While those claims aren't true now, they definitely held some water at the start, with Showbiz having more than a few Thom Yorke-isms in Matt Bellamy's vocal delivery. When Radiohead decided to go down the electronic rabbit hole with Kid A though, we got a trip into the world of space prog on Origin of Symmetry.
Having a lot more experience with recording, you can hear the band playing off each other a lot better, with songs that feel a lot more constructed than some of the glitchy jams happening on the first record. Going from one song to the next, you can hear Bellamy testing the waters of what can work in Muse's sound, like reinterpreting the classic jazz standard Feeling Good into a space epic or making thrashy jams like on Hyper Music, which feels like it owes a bit of a debt to someone like Rage Against the Machine.
They weren't afraid to wear some of their more sophisticated influences on their sleeve either, like going for some jazzy guitar breaks in Screenager and dipping their toes into prog rock on the 7 minute epic Citizen Erased. This wasn't just for the sake of showing off though. Underneath all of that Radiohead window dressing, there was still a damn good rock band looking to take over the world.