Muse fans have named the band's 2003 album Absolution as the best ever by the iconic Westcountry trio.
In a recent Gigwise poll, the chart topping album narrowly beat 2001 release Origin Of Symmetry to be voted fans' favourite, while their 2006 release, Black Holes and Revelations, placed third. The band's 2008 live album HAARP placed fourth, while their 2013 release, Live At Rome Olympic Stadium was named their fifth best.
Votes were high across all nine of the band's full length releases, but 2002's live album and b-side compilation Hullabaloo was voted least favourite with fans.
Click here to see the poll (now closed)
Matt Bellamy has previously stated that Absolution is one of the more intimate Muse albums, despite epic themes such as life, death, war and outer space. The album scored the band a No.1 in the UK and France and hit the top ten across Europe when it was released on 15 September, 2003.
Watch the official video for Absolution's lead single, 'Time Is Running Out', below
Muse released their most recent album, The 2nd Law in 2012, and have recently begun to discuss plans for a follow-up - tentatively scheduled for release in 2015 (after the band celebrate their 20 year anniversary in 2014). Matt Bellamy has revealed that band will be ditching the electronica heard on The 2nd Law in favour of a return to the rock sounds with which they made their name.
"The last two albums, we sort of veered away from our instruments a little bit," says Bellamy in a recent interview with Radio.com. "We sort of focused on things like synthesizers, drum machines and various electronics and stuff. I kind of feel like on this next album, we’re going to veer back towards musicianship again and focusing on our own instruments: guitar, bass and drums.
"It’s probably going to be a bit of a rawer album, and definitely a bit more rock, I’d say."
He also added, in true Muse style, that the album was likely to be a concept record, and may not be released in the usually manner.
"The main focus is we’re gonna record a bunch of music, probably a conceptual album of some kind, so it probably will be album length. But how we release it is up for debate," he adds, revealing that the new music is still at least a year away.
"The industry is moving so fast, you don’t really know… I don’t think we’ll be ready to put another album out until early 2015 or something, and I think around that time we’ll just look at what’s going on and make a judgement in the moment rather than thinking ahead, because things are changing so quickly."
Below: 10 things you may not have known about Absolution by Muse
