Twenty-odd years ago, when Muse emerged, their songs were concise — four minutes of hard indie rock with a big chorus. There was nothing to scare the horses in the excellent Plug in Baby or Time Is Running Out, but then in rode Knights of Cydonia (Bohemian Rhapsody for Morricone nuts) and a three-part symphony called Exogenesis — not to mention gigs with drones — and things got ridiculous.

“I can generally say,” says Matt Bellamy, their lead singer, who talks at a reckless pace, “that whenever we go to an operatic sphere and the lyrics get conspiratorial, spacey — well, that stuff gets slagged off.” Does he enjoy that, given that his music is about testing boundaries? “Nobody enjoys being slagged off,” he says,