Hi everyone, Hotthony Nutstano here, the internet's busiest music nerd, and it's time for a review of this new Muse album, The Wow! Signal.

Here we have the newest and 10th full-length album from English rockers Muse, who at this point have been on a years-long run of glorious, epic, over-budget blunders that increasingly feel like I am awaiting a new Marvel movie with each new album release.

Now, in a way, I suppose this is the direction the band's compass was always kind of pointing in to some degree. Because as great as Origin of Symmetry as well as Absolution are, what are these projects if not an embrace of theatrical rock excess?

Of course, Muse was not the only celebrated band to be doing something along these lines back in the early and mid-2000s. Certainly, The Mars Volta were no strangers to revitalizing soaring vocals and proggy guitar licks in a kind of new and edgy way. But Muse was definitely the only band that sounded like Radiohead had convinced themselves that Thom Yorke had the range to sing opera. Which is a delusion I myself have been happy to buy into on previous Muse records, even 2009's The Resistance, an album that has proven to be a bit of a controversial turning point for the band. Not only because it saw the band reaching a new, symphonic peak instrumentally, but the writing also saw them going for a more sociopolitical angle, focusing on themes like authoritarianism and the control of humanity.

Compelling topics for sure, but the dodgy specifics in Matt Bellamy's verses I think turned this record into a bit of a Rorschach test. You kinda saw in it whatever you saw in it. And I have mentioned this in previous coverage, but the album did attract conspiracy brain weirdos like Glenn Beck.

And look, a book can be written on conservatives not really understanding art, or not understanding when a piece of art is criticizing them, but ultimately Muse hasn't really got any better or clearer in the way they message in their music with regards to their political diagnoses of the world's problems. For example, their last record, Will of the People, came out back in 2022, and this project saw them leaning harder than ever into these political themes. And given the dire times this record was released in, I don't know if there was ever a point in the band's career where it was more important for them to get it right in terms of what they were addressing or trying to communicate. 'Cause it's one thing to be musing about MKUltra a year into the Obama administration. It's another to be making clueless and lazy allusions to masks and liberation, as QAnon freaks were dominating a great deal of the discourse around the COVID pandemic.

So, with all of that being said, given how long and how hard Muse has been going in this direction for one album after another, I went into The Wow! Signal with very low expectations. Basically just looking to survive another helping of bloated, pompous, pop-prog penned with the sort of apolitical commentary you would typically catch from an uncle Facebook comment.

But after having heard this project, I'm not blown away, but I'm a little surprised. Because it's not amazing, but it is at least some sort of an improvement. bAnd maybe in a way Muse kind of set themselves up for success here, because Will of the People really was truly their worst album at the time. As bad as that record was, it was kind of hard to imagine the band getting any worse.

And The Wow! Signal is definitely not worse, but, you know, the project does have its issues from the outset, like the gaudy shouted choral passages in Latin on the opening track, which are also paired with these generic, entry-level orchestrations that feel like an overblown knockoff of Lawrence of Arabia or something. But aside from that, I will say the drum and guitar work are genuinely visceral and well recorded and performed, and Matt's vocals are more measured but still expressive and I would say even beautiful during their best moments on this opener.

Plus, the writing on this track is taking a lot more inspiration from the cosmos and space communication, which I think gives Matt more of a fantastical sci-fi buffer when it comes to some of the writing and messaging here. There's less concern about the accuracy with which he is describing certain things, because he's not trying to pull inspiration directly from the material reality that we're all living. Again, it's not a track I love, but it's a move in the right direction for sure.

The following "Nightshift Superstar" lightens things up even more and feels almost like the band once again making nods to electro house music and electro pop, like back on their 2018 album Simulation Theory. Now, would I rather listen to Daft Punk or any number of artists who kind of pioneered this genre and made it what it is? Yes, but this track is still respectable compared to other attempts Muse has made in the past to do something similar. You can't ignore the snappy chorus on this track, along with this kind of snarling, stuttering bassline that would be a standout in any DJ set. Plus, additional points for kind of keeping the lyrics intergalactic as well, building up this main theme of the record.

Then "Shimmering Scars" is a very slow, heavy alt-metal ballad – a little Linkin Park-coded and not gonna be for everyone for sure, but the track does feature a burning, powerful instrumental bridge, and not stellar but interstellar chorus crescendos. The lyrics very clearly deal in alienation and the severing of a relationship of some kind that has kind of grown cold and distant. Very obvious, but Matt definitely puts all of this in the context of these space themes in a way I can respect.

Then we have "Cryogen," which, um, shocker: I love this. Sure, maybe in a way this song is a lot of hemming and hawing over a woman who is essentially kind of categorized as an ice queen, but the falsetto choruses and searing guitar leads all over this track make for a great combo – and dare I say this song even feels kind of a little bit like classic Muse. "Be With You" is a very on-the-nose but impassioned attempt at creating something that feels akin to a religious experience, with Bellamy crooning about finding a higher power, which is of course set against these droning organs, a melody that feels like we're kind of turning our hymnals to Page 23.

The issue, though, ultimately is this gummy aspirational dance beat that introduces itself almost randomly and feels like a leftover from that terrible Coldplay album that was like an alien orgy rave. It just kind of gives the song a rancid feeling that, sadly, the epic rock solo and lyrics of love and devotion that follow this moment just don't wash away.

"Hexagons," for me, is another highlight. It's a bit of sequencer rock with grandiose strings and driving arpeggios, which all create the perfect foundation for Matt Bellamy to do his thing vocally. And, to my surprise, lyrically, this song might be one of the most lucid pieces of social commentary the band has put out in a long, long time. The track almost has a fatalistic view of the future, and feels like a continuation of the band's narrative voice when it comes to the ways in which they have written about rebellion and revolution in the past. Talking about love's connection to rebellion and revolution as a concept, but now their views have shifted on that as they talk about this rebellion being mass-produced and sold back to us, kind of failing in its mission ultimately.

And yeah, that's a pretty dark and hopeless framing but there certainly is a point to the idea of the internet and various social and news platforms essentially commodifying the anguish and dissatisfaction that many people have with the status quo.

After this, unfortunately, I do think the record starts to take a bit of a nosedive. The riffs and writing on "The Sickness in You & I" feels more or less like a Will of the People leftover. Really the most difficult song to stomach on the record, musically and aesthetically. The guitars are just so chunky and corny and boring and basic. And, unfortunately, this is not the only song on the record that kinda goes full-tilt nu metal. That's also very much the case for "Unravelling" as well. Again, similar vibes getting carried over onto this track, with Muse also kind of pulling out every little cheap symphonic trick that they have in their tool belt.

The song "Hush" features Ellie Goulding, who, I mean, is fine, undeniably a vocal talent, but somebody whose abilities I don't look forward to hearing on mainstream rock albums. I feel like with her inclusion you're pretty much guaranteed to get, uh, something that is overly sentimental and melodramatic, which this track very much is, even if on a conceptual level I can appreciate the band trying to, you know, bring two differing voices together on this record, where you do have these very prominent themes of separation and a falling out and a heartbreak, which the very slow and lumbering, almost funeral march-paced closing track tries to really get some closure on – very sad and disappointing closure but closure nonetheless – with Bellamy singing "Orbit slow as her soul decays / Like space debris she will drift away."

And believe me, I do appreciate the band putting in the effort to actually put an ending on this concept and this story they have attempted to tell across this tracklist. But after all is said and done, I can't help but feel like the idea of this love and the way it ties into these space themes, and how there are also these bits of commentary when it comes to the state of humanity and power, it's all very vastly underexplored in terms of its full potential.

Still, though, I think Muse have put at least a few more catchier tracks on here than they have been in recent years on average with their past several albums, so there's at least that. And again, I will readily acknowledge this is a better listen than Will of the People, and maybe at least for now that's enough.

I'm feeling a strong 4 on this album.

Anthony Fantano. Muse. Forever.