Britain’s leading purveyors in sci-fi, prog-lined arena rock have just announced that they’ll be returning to Australia for a tour, their first since dropping their sixth studio album The 2nd Law last year.

The UK trio are heading to Australia later in the year with the news leaking in a simple response to a fan query over Twitter, courtesy of the band’s own histrionically talented frontman, Matt Bellamy.

When discussing his desires to purchase a ’20ft tall robot’ to patrol their stadium stage during their dubstep-influenced track ‘Unsustainable’, an enterprising fan casually asked the singer if Muse had any plans to take their show down under anytime soon:

Bellmay’s confirmation of a year-end visit from the band marks their first visit to Australia since playing the 2010 Big Day Out and a series of mammoth arena sideshows in Melbourne, Sydney, and Brisbane in December that year.

Since then, their over the top single ‘Survival’ was recognised as the official anthem for the 2012 London Olympic Games, had one of their video shoots gatecrashed by a high-speed police chase, and even been sued for $3.5 million by a man claiming that they stole his idea for a sci-fi rock opera (a few years too late).

They also courted controversy with their dubstep-soundtracking album teaser for The 2nd Law, before releasing what is perhaps the most colourfully eclectic album of their nearly 20 year career; channelling a mix of 80s era INXS, Skrillex, U2, and their usual conspiracy-theory lined songwriting taking the second law of thermodynamics as inspiration.

Well known for their extravagant live show, the band’s current stage set-up for The 2nd Law features a huge bank of video screens projecting a variety of sensory overloading images, that eventually transforms into a pyramid of TVs (watch the madness here) and given their ambitious stage setups have made the leap overseas before, its likely Australian audiences will get a taste of their new, elaborate setup.

A December tour from Muse also puts them into the rumour mill for festivals playing in Australia’s summer festival season, though they’ve generally been attached to the Big Day Out, an end of year visit could put them in contention for the year end Falls Festival.

A giant pyramid of televisions and lasers out in the fields of Lorne to close out 2013? We can think of worse ideas.

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