Muse
Bliss

Is it possible for a post-grunge band to make great music, create great music videos, and at the same time manage to appear on MTV? The answer is definitely NO, unless we're talking about Matthew Bellamy, Chris Wolstenhome, and Dominic Howard, in other words, Muse, a band capable of breaking through by creating their own highly original sound made of qualitatively excellent pop/rock contaminated by keyboard lines with a strong electronic flavor but always enjoyable and sublimated by Bellamy's stunning voice. The fact that the essential Dream Theater was inspired by them for two stunning tracks like "Never Enough" and "Prophets Of War" finally convinced me to get their 4 albums, and what was once a well-founded doubt has become an inescapable certainty: Muse are the best rock band currently active on the face of the earth.

A clear example of their incredible skill is "Bliss", the third single from "Origin Of Symmetry," their second album from 2001, in my opinion the most beautiful along with "Black Holes And Revelations".

More than a song, Bliss is an emotion, a thrill, something that leaves the listener bewildered, stunned, in a kind of ecstasy that's hard to describe: it might be the effect of those keyboards that seem to whirl, creating melodies of incredible communicative strength, intertwining with a perfectly fitting rhythm section, or it might be Matthew Bellamy's voice, singing in a truly epic and engaging manner, with a falsetto that increases in intensity in an incredible climax until it reaches goosebumps-inducing heights. The idiotic smile and the somewhat bewildered and dazed look that appeared on my face when I first listened to this song say it all.

Even the "antigravitational" video and the lyrics are absolutely not inferior to the song itself, especially the lyrics, which are one of the most beautiful declarations of love ever conceived by the human mind, a hymn to total abandon and sensory ecstasy.

"Everything about you is how I wanna be
Your freedom comes naturally
Everything about you resonates happiness
Now I won't settle for less

Give me all the peace and joy in your mind

Everything you pains my envying
Your soul can't hate anything
Everything about you is so easy to love
They're watching you from above

Give me all the peace and joy in your mind
I want the peace and joy in your mind
Give me the peace and joy in your mind

Everything about you resonates happiness
Now I won't settle for less

Give me all the peace and joy in your mind
I want the peace and joy in your mind
Give me the peace and joy in your mind" 

Congratulations, Muse, you've won the heart of a metalhead.