08 BUTTERFLIES AND HURRICANES ABSOLUTION (2003)

Their first-ever top 10 single from their first album to top the charts on home soil, Butterflies And Hurricanes is the sound of a band with all the creative wind in their sails. With Bellamy’s octave shapes providing a counter melody to Chris Wolstenholme’s bass lines, it’s another track that carries a strong progressive and space rock influence, with no shortage of keyboards adding to the atmospheric collage. There have been several live arrangements of the track over the years – some closer to the original and others with Bellamy replicating the opening synth line on guitar by playing a standard Dm chord and holding that shape while lowering the note played on the B string one fret at a time. It’s this knowledge of chords – where to use majors, minors, dominants and half-diminisheds – that has allowed Bellamy to break out of conventional rock guitar riffing and into more modal, classical and filmscore-esque grandeur.

NEW BORN FINDS BELLAMY MUTATING DIFFERENT STYLES INTO HIS OWN BEAST