Muse ‎– Muscle Museum EP (RSD 2026)

Muscle Museum EP captures Muse right before their debut album, still raw, nervy, and sharpening the dramatic tension that would define their early sound. The recordings feel lean and volatile: jagged guitar lines, restless bass movement, and Matt Bellamy’s vocals swinging between fragile falsetto and explosive release. There’s a clear Radiohead‑adjacent melancholy in the harmonic language, but the band’s own identity—grand, anxious, and theatrically intense—is already taking shape.

The production is unvarnished, giving the songs a claustrophobic, rehearsal‑room immediacy. Even so, the arrangements hint at the scale Muse would soon embrace, with dynamic surges and melodic turns that feel bigger than the EP’s modest frame. It’s a snapshot of a young band pushing outward, testing extremes, and finding the emotional and sonic contours that would define their early era.