“Time Is Running Out” by Muse

"Time Is Running Out" was the second single from Absolution, Muse's third album, in September 2003, and it's the moment the band's grand, paranoid theatrics finally squeezed themselves into a radio-sized package. Christopher Wolstenholme's bass does the stalking, a taut, twitchy line locked to Dominic Howard's drums, while Matt Bellamy works guitar, keyboards and that swooping, operatic voice all at once, holding back through the verses and then flinging the chorus at the rafters.

Bellamy wrote the words, the three of them wrote the music together, and Rich Costey produced it with the band, mixed it and engineered it alongside Wally Gagel. The result is lean and wound tight, a song that sounds like it's pacing the room.

It gave Muse their first top-10 hit at home, peaking at number eight. America got it in April 2004, and it did what nothing of theirs had managed there before: it broke them on alternative rock radio and climbed to number nine on the Modern Rock Tracks chart.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.