MUSE - Cryogen | Music Teacher Reacts + Riff Analysis

Added: 2026-05-11

[00:00:00]All right, Muse has a new music video today. Just 5 hours ago this dropped, Cryogen, and I really haven't heard anything from this recent drop of Muse, the new songs they've been putting out this year. So, this will be my first time hearing anything of their new music. I think they've dropped a couple songs in these past few months that I need to catch up with.

[00:00:23]But, um are we on Pluto here?

[00:00:27]That's what it kind of looks like.

[00:00:29]Or is it Jupiter? I don't know.

[00:00:32]Oh, are we on one of Jupiter's moons?

[00:00:36]Is Cryogen one of Okay, sorry. I'm thinking out loud here. I'm kind of dumb with astronomy, but anyway, let's check this out. Muse Cryogen official music video.

[00:00:48]Let's do it.

[00:00:55]Oh.

[00:00:56]That's sick.

[00:01:01]>> [music] >> Kind of reminds me of the Twenty One Pilots aesthetic.

[00:01:15]Oh.

[00:01:16]>> [music] >> Yes.

[00:01:22]Ooh.

[00:01:24]Dude.

[00:01:25]>> [music] >> We're finally getting like some of that classic Plug In Baby style guitar riff in here, the like the sound that you get out of the Muse trio just being an indie band.

[00:01:41]You know, cuz they've really gotten into the electronic stuff and these massive orchestral stuff and all that, but my favorite Muse is still when it's their three-piece sound where you got Matt's really cool riffs on guitar and uh Dom's powerful drums and Chris's distorted melodic bass lines. Like it's just such a magical combination.

[00:02:07]So, I'm I really hope that this song leans into that hard. But, uh the intro so far is very exciting.

[00:02:17]Actually, I'm just going to back this up to where the riff started.

[00:02:22]>> [music] [music] >> Love the melody of this riff.

[00:02:47]Jumping across octaves, too.

[00:02:52]>> [music] >> Dude, shout out to that drum fill, too.

[00:03:02]>> [music] >> Dude, that's such classic Dom fill. Ah.

[00:03:07]What does that remind me of? Kind of reminds me of when him and Chris used to do the Helsinki like the I don't know if Helsinki Jam was like something recurring, but I remember watching that and the drum fills Dominic was doing.

[00:03:19]By the way, in case this is your first time here, Muse is my was my favorite band of all time.

[00:03:26]Recently, it's been a little shaky for me. Like not quite as hardcore of a fan, but still like they are my favorite band of all time. Uh I I've done so many covers of their music over the years. Very poorly put together covers across multiple YouTube channels.

[00:03:42]There's a lot on this channel, I think, maybe. But, anyway, like one of my all-time favorite bands, I used to be obsessed about like dissecting their music. So, I'm really stoked to to be watching this video.

[00:03:57]>> [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] >> All right.

[00:05:02]Cool bass progression.

[00:05:11]>> [music] [music] [music] >> Some layered atmospheric vocals.

[00:05:33]>> [music] >> Love this drum pattern.

[00:05:37]>> [music] [music] [music] [music] >> Great yeah, dude. [music] >> [music] [music] [music] [music] >> Dude.

[00:06:42]Dude, oh man. Okay, first off that bridge when he brought in that even more intense guitar riff on the lower notes right in that while singing too. Like that that seems like it's would be insane to perform live. Um but super cool riff. I do wish there was like that they played that riff a bit without any vocals first before jumping into the bridge, but we're already at 5 minutes total so I can see why they would not you know they would uh do it that way. But then leading into uh hold on. I got to hear that again.

[00:07:24]Dom's drum fill at the end of all that was so cool. Uh lots of dynamic put into >> [music] >> Oh yeah, so they bring bring in this more like big epic sounding elec almost like electronically processed drums.

[00:07:42]Yeah.

[00:07:53]>> [music] [music] [music] >> Oh.

[00:08:07]Love that feel.

[00:08:13]>> [music] [music] >> Iconic [music] male falsetto.

[00:08:32]>> [music] [music] >> Oh.

[00:08:45]>> [music] >> Oh.

[00:08:57]Time change.

[00:09:07]>> [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] >> Ooh.

[00:09:50]Ending on pure dissonance right there.

[00:09:55]Dude, that calm response so bass solo at the end. Oh my gosh, that was so sick. I did not expect this time change outro. That was so sick.

[00:10:09]Um I got to hear that again.

[00:10:14]Cool how they also weaved the original riff from the song back into the outro, too.

[00:10:21]Oh, I love that riff. I got to figure that out.

[00:10:29]>> [music] >> Total vibe change.

[00:10:37]Kind of bouncy.

[00:10:38]It's going to go crazy in the pit at the show.

[00:10:43]>> [music] >> Ah, they're coming to my town. I got to get tickets now. [music] >> [music] [music] [music] [music] >> Bro.

[00:11:22]Muse reminding us why they're so iconic and legendary.

[00:11:29]Like ah, this is what I want from Muse, dude. This this is like the peak Muse style right here, in my opinion.

[00:11:39]This is what I love about them.

[00:11:41]>> [laughter] >> But, I mean, it's great, too, that there's so many different, you know, they they've got such an eclectic discography that it's really cool that there's fans of all types of their music in there, cuz there's some whose favorite albums are like Simulation Theory and uh Will of the People or whatever. But, for me, it's like that early stuff, Origin of Symmetry. I love Showbiz still, Black Holes, um and Absolution is probably my favorite album. But, it's like uh this is what I'm talking about, dude.

[00:12:17]And they've improved on everything, too.

[00:12:19]Like, Dom's drumming has a bit more like dynamic sensibility in it now.

[00:12:26]And, you know, he just weaves a lot of different different grooves and uh it's so cool.

[00:12:35]And [snorts] their production quality is better now, even though I do miss like the raw sound of Absolution. I loved the drum sound in Absolution because it was it was almost like raw overheads, you know, some effects, but it was pretty pretty raw drums, and I just I thought they sounded so good. But, now I'm just rambling because I am kind of a Muse fanboy. So, >> [laughter] >> dude, I kind of got a I want to figure out that riff real quick.

[00:13:06]Figure out why why it makes me tick, you know?

[00:13:17]Oh, man, where do I have a guitar that's in tune? Give me a second.

[00:13:29]I specifically tuned up this guitar just now so I could use it to try to figure out this riff. Uh because I mean, come on.

[00:13:38]When I was I think 20 20 years old, I bought this guitar for like 100 bucks and then cut into it so I had a place to put my fuzz factory and my Kaossillator pad.

[00:13:53]True means literal fanboy. But anyway, okay.

[00:14:00]I haven't played this guitar in probably a decade.

[00:14:04]So, oh, no.

[00:14:06]It needs uh needs some help.

[00:14:13]Oh, it's touchy. It's touchy, but uh okay. Let's uh take a listen here.

[00:14:22]By the way, I don't have this plugged into my fuzz factory right now uh because I would take a lot of time and I don't have a battery in my fuzz factory so it's just going through my regular amp, which is really noisy right now with this guitar, but >> [music] >> Okay, so >> [music] [music] >> Okay.

[00:15:07]>> [music] >> What's that? Sorry.

[00:15:17]>> [music] >> Oh, so just major triads.

[00:15:26]>> [music] >> Okay. So That was actually pretty easy to figure out because it's just following like major triads.

[00:15:35]Well, this one's minor.

[00:15:37]>> [music] >> Yeah, so it's basically >> [music] >> What was that? B minor?

[00:15:50]B minor triad?

[00:15:58]>> [music] >> And then just uh let's see what's that?

[00:16:02]G major triad?

[00:16:04]And a F sharp major triad. So a pretty >> [music] >> Okay.

[00:16:15]>> [music] >> Okay.

[00:16:19]Sweet. So >> [music] >> Whoops.

[00:16:28]Stretched it too far.

[00:16:32]>> [music] [music] >> I keep wanting to stretch there.

[00:16:45]But anyway, okay, so that's the main riff and then it adds >> [music] >> Wait, what Which note slides?

[00:17:03]>> [music] [music] >> Oh.

[00:17:17]>> [music] >> Is that what it does? Oh, you can't even see.

[00:17:26]So, I don't have enough frets for this. He must be on a 24-fret.

[00:17:36]Is that a full octave?

[00:17:40]Yeah. Slide in from the What is that?

[00:17:43]G note down here to the G note up here and then bending it.

[00:17:54]And then what's that? Oh, so that's the major third of the G that it's landing on. So, So, it's basically landing on the major third of the note that it's bending.

[00:18:10]Basically, it's the same note. It's landing on the same note that it was jumping to the >> [music] >> this note.

[00:18:18]It would be uh down here.

[00:18:21]>> [music] [clears throat] >> No. Wait.

[00:18:26]>> [music] >> Anyway, I'm really getting into the musical theory weeds here. So, I'm just going to wrap this up. I wanted to figure that out, but it's basically just following your basic minor and major triads uh up and down the riff and then doing that octave slide. And to this day, I still don't know what the "Plug In Baby" riff follows. It's a lot It's a lot more of like a harmonic minor, like not your typical um major scale.

[00:19:05]Like this riff is It fits into your typical Western major scale um and it the modes that are within it but plug and baby is not it's you know it's modified. It's got some half steps where there wouldn't usually be and stuff. So that's why it has a little bit of a different sound and this one sounds more you know easily digestible to the ear. So I do like it when they use harmonic minor modes and stuff. But what can you do? This is still such a sick sound. At the end of the day the scale doesn't matter as much as the way it makes you feel, right? So I've really gotten lost in the weeds in the theory for this one.

[00:19:46]>> [laughter] >> But thank you for being patient with me while I check this out. I appreciate you. Thanks for watching.

[00:19:54]>> [music] >> Stream my anime and full concert reactions by joining my Patreon. There you can make your own reaction requests or visit my website. All linked below.

[00:20:10]Thanks for [music] watching and I'll talk to you next time.