Hemingway's Final Muse

Whether you view them as dynamic rock & roll rulers or overblown Radiohead knock-offs, it's hard to contend with Muse's strength as a live act. H.A.A.R.P. shows the band strutting its stuff in front of a sold-out audience at Wembley Stadium, with a set list that relies heavily on 2006's Black Holes and Revelations but still dips into the band's back catalog. The accompanying DVD gives a flashy, glitzy face to the music, and the refreshing lack of lightning-fast camera editing helps boost it above the band's previous CD/DVD combo, Hullabaloo Soundtrack. Still, the audio disc holds up quite well on its own, both for its crystal clear sound quality as well as the band's confident performance. Muse's intricate, electronics-laced material isn't the easiest thing to replicate in a live setting, but H.A.A.R.P. sounds as sharp as the band's studio albums, with Matthew Bellamy often adding different guitar flourishes…

If you're going to pillage someone else's ideas, then go for broke. Because even if you find yourself crammed between the barriers of creative space, utterly at a loss for ideas, expression, or thought, you'd still have a self-respect buzzing in your ear like a mad angelic insect, putting down the newspaper and taking out a cigar to remind you that, hell, if want to sound like Radiohead when even Thom Yorke doesn't want to sound like Radiohead, you might as well take it to preposterous, bombastic, over-the-top levels…

Muse are set to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Origin Of Symmetry by releasing a new remixed version of the album. Origin Of Symmetry: XX Anniversary RemiXX features remixed and remastered audio plus re-imagined artwork of the band's 2001 album, which includes their hits Plug In Baby and Feeling Good. The album, which sees the band come together with GRAMMY-winning producer Rich Costey, will be released on digital formats on 18 June before two vinyl packages follow on 9 July.

If you're going to pillage someone else's ideas, then go for broke. Because even if you find yourself crammed between the barriers of creative space, utterly at a loss for ideas, expression, or thought, you'd still have a self-respect buzzing in your ear like a mad angelic insect, putting down the newspaper and taking out a cigar to remind you that, hell, if want to sound like Radiohead when even Thom Yorke doesn't want to sound like Radiohead, you might as well take it to preposterous, bombastic, over-the-top levels. Add church organs, mental electronics, riffs bouncing off each other like the monolithic screams in 2001: A Space Odyssey, and you'll finally be in position to crack skulls like coconuts and make the world's speakers ooze gooey blood.