copyright 2009, The Washington Post MUSE 'The Resistance' Kindred spirits: Radiohead, Queen, Placebo When the bombastic British super-trio Muse is at its fist-pumping best, it produces the type of enervating music that could foment a revolution. A revolution against, well, 'them.' Who 'them' is doesn't matter, but Muse has been fighting them with its anthemic, sci-fi agitprop for years. On its latest offering, 'The Resistance,' the battle rages on, with chant-inducing choruses, escalating prog-rock riffage and lead singer and guitarist-cum-concert-pianist Matthew Bellamy's vague calls to arms. Bellamy's lyrics have always contained traces of neo-populist smarm, but on the new CD, he lazily panders to an audience made up entirely of Orwell's '1984' hero, Winston Smith. 'They will not force us, they will stop degrading us / They will not control us, we will be victorious,' he assures 'us' on album opener 'Uprising.' But fussing about a few lyrical mishaps here is like complaining about the picture frames at an art galley; it's about the stadium-packing crescendos produced by a band with a flair for dramatic tension. And while 'The Resistance' occasionally plays like the soundtrack to some as-yet-untitled sequel to 'The Matrix,' the skittering slow boil of 'Undisclosed Desires' and the ragtime (yep, ragtime) influenced 'I Belong to You' never made a vague call for revolution sound so actionable. 