Sound development through the years

For their second Origin of Symmetry (2001) album, the band wanted to enhance their sound into a more progressive, confident and aggressive sound: " Looking back, (Chris regarding to the sound of their previous album) there isn't much difference sonically between the mellow stuff and the heavier tracks. The heavy stuff really could have been a lot heavier and that's what we want to do with this album."

Their third release, Absolution (2003), followed its predecessor's tendency, increasing the band's heaviness and intensity alongside its ambitious thematics. The album also features songs with prominent string arrangements and starts to draw influences from artists such as Queen.

Their fourth album, Black Holes and Revelations (2006) is a more electronica – and space rock – oriented album, though some tracks keep the heaviness of the band's previous work, while others show a more melodic style, akin to the musical style of their first Showbiz (1999) album. Black Holes and Revelations was influenced by artists like Depeche Mode and Lightning Bolt, as well by various styles of Asian and European music, such as Naples music; additionally, the band listened to radio stations from the Middle East during the album's recording sessions.

Muse's fifth album, The Resistance (2009) is centred on the symphonic rock and progressive rock genres, as demonstrated in the tracks " Resistance" and the " Exogenesis: Symphony". Although it is sonically softer than its predecessors, it still contains the heavy compositions, for which Muse has become known. The album is heavily influenced by classical music as well as rock acts such as Queen, Ultravox (" Guiding Light" features a heavy " Vienna" influence) and U2. Queen's guitarist Brian May has praised Muse's work, calling the band " extraordinary musicians", who " let their madness show through, always a good thing in an artist."

Muse’s sixth album, The 2nd Law (2012) has a much broader range of influences, ranging from funk and film scores to electronica and dubstep, while some of the compositions still have the heavy guitar work, for which the band is known and is very similar to Black Holes and Revelations (2006), one of its predecessors, on its context. The 2nd Law is influenced by rock acts such as Queen, U2 and Led Zeppelin (on " Supremacy") as well as dubstep producer Skrillex and Nero (on " The 2nd Law: Unsustainable" and " Follow Me", with the latter being co-produced by Nero), Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder (on " Panic Station" which features musicians who performed on Stevie Wonder's " Superstition") and Hans Zimmer. Additionally, the album marks the first performance of bassist Chris Wolstenholme on lead vocals, who wrote two songs for the album about his battle with alcoholism – " Save Me" and " Liquid State".

Critics have made comparisons between Muse's early work with the one from the English alternative rock band Radiohead, with criticism directed towards Bellamy's vocal style. Additionally, in a 1999 issue of the French magazine Rock Sound, Bellamy named The Bends by Radiohead and Nirvana's Nevermind as the most important albums of the decade. However since then the band have retracted these statements various times and have stated, that what they meant to say was, that Nirvana and Radiohead were the most successful alternative rock bands in the 1990s, and were influential to many bands, but that does not necessarily mean, that Radiohead was an influence for them. On the other hand, Muse acknowledges Nirvana as a major influence. Bellamy has stated at various times, that Radiohead " really don't do much for him" and attributes the similarities to the fact, that both bands are notably influenced by the alternative rock musician Jeff Buckley.