The biggest little man in rock and roll has unleashed one of the most exiting revelations in music this year. Matt Bellamy from Muse has revealed that the latest album will be released sometime next year under the meaningful title The Resistant.

The prog rock guitar virtuoso responsible for flavouring Muse’s previous four albums with insightful nods to romantic composers like the sensationally gloomy Rachmaninoff, has indicated that The Resistant is set to follow in the same footsteps with hopes that at least three predominantly orchestral tracks will make the final cut. Quite an impressive feat given that Bellamy admittedly cannot read music score and insists on arranging the orchestral parts himself.

“I have been arranging the orchestral elements myself which is taking a long time due to my inexperience with large scale scoring,” he revealed.

The announcement of the new album comes as a pleasant surprise to Muse followers after a statement from Bellamy in May last year in which he declared that Muse would no longer produce studio albums in favour of sporadic single releases. The thought process behind this concept was simply to “produce a load of music” for release without the pressure of committing to the sometimes arduous processes that a full-length album can inevitably inspire. After the phenomenal success of Black Holes and Revelations this was deemed by some to be a step in an unusual direction. But for those of us familiar with the Devonshire trio, unusual is part for parcel.

Alongside the release of next years The Resistant, Muse plan to tour the UK, Europe and the US. This writer has been lucky enough to see Muse three times over the past few years, the first being at 2000’s Livid Festival in Brisbane which has provided me with a smug sense of pride that I’ll never let my dear friends forget. So here’s hoping the guys make the trek back to Oz for another round of chaotic live shows and pure Muse mayhem.

- Carley Hall