Muse, Absolution Album Cover, 2003

Muse drummer, Dom, happened to come across a rough of this concept on the StormStudios website, and quickly felt the urge to ask Thorgerson if he could do something like this in real life for Muse's coming album, Absoution.

"We met with Dom and agreed that we should try and render our pencil sketch as a real event: shadows of flying people spread across the ground as if cast  by a squadron of flying craft, magical beings swooping over the Earth to the amazement of the viewer on the ground looking up. It is as though he is witnessing some mystical event, a visitation of strange beings, which can only be inferred by us, the viewers of the picture, because all we see is shadows, whereas the viewer in the picture sees them for real, gliding serenely overhead. He is deeply moved and experiences a kind of absolution as one might in the presence of such a miraculous sight."

  -Storm Thorgerson