It still amazes me that there are some people in the world who haven’t heard of Muse. Even worse, there are some who have heard of them but rather than react with joy that they’ve discovered a truly great band simply don’t get them or, shock horror, don’t like them. I suppose there is no accounting for taste.

Muse are, for me, the greatest British band around right now. Each album is a carefully constructed opus magnum which cuts across genres and leaves everyone who listens ecstatic at the music they’ve just heard.

Muse released their last studio album, Black Holes and Revelations, back in 2006, and have been extensively touring ever since. But they’ve also spent the last year beavering away on the follow-up.

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Oasis have only just released new album, Dig Out Your Soul, but haven’t wasted any time in announcing the tour to support it, and it’s a big one. While there are currently only eight gigs on the agenda, they’re all at huge venues, including two dates in Manchester and one each at Slane Castle, Dublin, and Wembley Stadium, London.

Noel announced the new Summer 2009 tour at the new Wembley Stadium which has already played host to the likes of Muse and Foo Fighters since it reopened in 2007. Tickets for all the shows will go on sale on Friday, October 24th at 10am, and if other Oasis tours are anything to go on, they will sell out extremely quickly.

Support for the gigs will come from Kasabian and The Enemy, two bands clearly influenced by Oasis and who are likely to appeal directly to Oasis fans.

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The last Radiohead album, In Rainbows, was not only musically brilliant, but was also a revelation for the way it was released. Radiohead decided to eschew giving the album its début on physical formats, and instead chose to release it on the Internet for free (or as near as damn it).

But that all happened almost a year ago now, with the download being available from October 10th, 2007. In Rainbows has since been released on CD and vinyl, but it’s now time to move on, and the band are already working on their next album. In fact most of it is already complete.

After losing the Nationwide Mercury Music Prize to Elbow last week, Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien spoke to BBC 6Music about the band’s forthcoming plans. According to the NME, he said:

“We’re still talking about doing some stuff and we’re really excited about it. First we came off tour to do some writing and we wanted to carry on doing it because it was so brilliant.”

Modest as ever, but it’s great news for Radiohead fans everywhere that a new album is already in the offing. If it’s already at that stage of completion, then I’d guess a 2009 release was on the cards. The only question left is whether the In Rainbows model will be used again, or will the follow-up see a much more traditional release?

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Muse are probably the best band in the UK, and possibly even the world, right now. But to keep the quality of their material as high as we’ve come to expect it to be, they take an absolute age to release a new album. And it seems they are sticking true to form for the follow-up to 2006’s Black Holes And Revelations.

Muse started working on the new album earlier this year, and just last month announced they had several tracks in the bag for the next album. But it seems the new songs weren’t so much finished as just being started on. So us Muse fans have a little longer to wait than we may have expected.

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Biffy Clyro are a band who have been around for an absolute age, but apart from a very dedicated set of fans, have failed to really cross over to the mainstream or have huge success. That looks all set to change with their new release, Mountains, which went straight in to the top ten of the British charts at the weekend.

Biffy Clyro are a Sottish rock group who have been in existence since 1995. Their sound covers a wide spectrum of genres, with metal, punk, hardcore, and alternative all featuring quite heavily as influences.

Their latest album, Puzzles, was released last year to much critical acclaim, and the band’s career has gone from strength to strength over the past 12 months. As well as supporting huge groups such as Muse, The Who, and The Rolling Stones, Biffy Clyro are known for their explosive festival sets, usually performed topless.

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Feeder are one of those bands who seem to be forever in the background without ever getting the headlines they deserve. They’ve had their moments, with Buck Rogers and Just The Way I’m Feeling both being singles which have scored them big hits, but generally, they are too ignored by the mainstream.

Which is a shame because like Muse and the Stereophonics, Feeder are a brilliant band who straddle various genres of music and should have more fans than they do. Feeder are indie rock now but you can also hear traces of pop and hard rock in most of their singles, which is a heady mix.

Feeder released their sixth studio album earlier this year, titled Silent Cry, and I must admit to having completely missed its release, and the subsequent two singles that have been released from it. And I class myself as a fan of the band too. Which just goes to show the lack of press attention that Feeder receives these days.

Tracing Lines is the third single to be released from Silent Cry, and it’s time to rectify the wrongness of me not having covered Feeder at all on Brit Music Scene over the past year.

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The Vodafone Live Music Awards are an annual awards ceremony, sponsored funnily enough by Vodafone.

Unlike other all-encompassing awards ceremonies, these focus on live music. I bet you’d have never guessed if I hadn’t told you so.

The year’s nominations have now been announced and it’s an eclectic bunch of artists to say the least. Leading the way are bands such as Muse, The Verve and Led Zeppelin, while female solo artists are also well represented by the likes of Amy Winehouse, Duffy, and Kate Nash.

Unfortunately, the list of solo male artists is a bit bare, with Morrissey and Paul Weller surely there just to make up the numbers? And as good as Mark Ronson is, he is a producer, and needs a lot of support from singers and band members to be able to put any kind of show on. ‘Read More’ for the list of nominees…

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The brilliant Muse have started working on songs for their next release, which should, if everything goes to plan, be their fifth studio album. However, the band aren’t yet sure about what form the release will take, be it a conventional album, a series of singles or even a drawn out rock opera!

Muse released Black Holes and Revelations in 2006, and have since been touring like there’s no tomorrow, playing massive gigs in the UK, including their phenomenally successful Wembley dates last year, and a string of dates around the world. Though the tour isn’t officially ending until after the V Festival in August, the band have already taken a break, and are now back hard at work.

Dom Howard spoke to NME after drumming for Razorlight man Andy Burrows last night at a rare solo outing and confirmed the band were working on new material.

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Some of the bloggers here on the b5 music channel decided to record our Soundtrack For A Day yesterday. This could take different forms, be it all the songs you listened to on that day, a selection from certain moments, or a particular album.

I decided to stick my media player on random and note down the first 50 songs it played, and here is the result.

As a full time blogger who works from home, music is very important to me as it can change the mood of my day. Pressing the random button is therefore a bit of a gamble but this time it didn’t let me down.

Notice the amount of British songs in the collection! That’s not engineered in any way, just proof that that is where my big love in music lies. There are also some brilliant American and Irish bands in there too, and of course, Abba…

Stereophonics - Mr Writer
The Feeling - Join With Us
Foo Fighters - Times Like These
Art Brut - Stand Down
The Killers - On Top
Coldplay - Spies
The Kooks - Got No Love
Radiohead - Videotape
The Hoosiers - Worried About Ray
Maximo Park - By The Monument
The Jam - All Around The World
Girls Aloud - Long Hot Summer
Snow Patrol - Gleaming Auction
Jimi Hendrix - House Burning Down
Therapy? - Knives
Tricky - Ponderosa
Lily Allen - Everything’s Just Wonderful
The Rolling Stones - Honky Tonk Woman
Linkin Park - Nobody’s Listening
Rage Against The Machine - People Of The Sun
Nina Simone - Feeling Good
REM - It’s The End Of The World As We Know It
The Young Knives - Another Hollow Line
Paul Simon - The Boy In The Bubble
The Specials - Too Much Too Young

See the second half of my 50 song list after the cut…

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The Feeling are a band who are never going to be cool, never going to get on the cover of NME, and never going to be the next big thing.

But you know what? None of that matters, as they put out some incredibly well written, and well composed pop songs, and after seeing them live, I know they’re fantastic in the flesh too. I’d even go as far to say they push Muse for title of Best Live Band in the UK right now.

This is actually the second time I’ve seen The Feeling live, the first being in the Manchester Apollo early last year, when the band were touring on the back of awesome début album Twelve Stops and Home.

This tour is their first since second album, Join With Us, was released last month, and if anything, they were even better this time around than last. I suppose that’s what touring constantly for a year does to you.

I entered the venue excited, and that excitement was paid back in full by a group at the absolute top of their game. From the moment they came on stage, the whole band had the crowd eating out their hand, with front man Dan Gillespie Sells being the main conductor of the 3,000 strong audience.

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