Album Review: Muse – The Wow! Signal
3 min read
Muse don’t think small. Over the last three decades, Matt Bellamy and company have built a career on grand concepts, towering riffs, and dystopian themes, filling stadiums several times over – whether it’s government surveillance, artificial intelligence, or the end of civilisation itself, there is no topic off record. The Wow! Signal, through Warner Records, is the band’s tenth studio album, taking its name from the famous unexplained radio signal detected from space in 1977 – a title that perfectly suits a band whose imagination has always stretched well beyond … so let’s find out whether Muse make contact with something extraordinary, or if this signal fades and the concept is just one step too far!
And the diehards will (I think) love this start – The Dark Forest is classic Muse – think Knights of Cydonia meets United States of Eurasia meets London Philharmonic Orchestra – with a very slight classically Arabic music quality slightly interwoven… very good! How can Nightshift Superstar hold up against that? There’s a monster bassline to this track, though for me it sounds a bit like a mid-level Justice track, and honestly the lyrics don’t work for me either. Moving swiftly on, Shimmering Scars is a very personal track, with a fantastic organ bridge, combined with excellent lyrical work – another belter! Cryogen next, a perfect follow on track, and feels like old Muse (almost an evil Plug In Baby, anyone?), while Be with You is another track that I wasn’t into – it felt like a bit of a cheap rock opera track, and I didn’t like how it flowed from the previous two tracks, at least it was short!!
Hexagons (played in 6/8, btw) kicks off the second half of the album, and is a pure mixture of Muse sounds through the years, combined into one track – I think fans will absolutely LOVE this… definitely a 1980’s rock feel to it… very good!! The Sickness in You & I continues the high quality tracks, with a fantastic drop mid-track, and this leads seamlessly into Unravelling to complete what I think is the second trilogy of songs on the album (this one being far superior as a whole), another top, hard rocking track! Penultimate track Hush features Ellie Goulding, which you would think wouldn’t work as a collab, but you’d be dead wrong because this is a prog rock smash, and we close out with Space Debris, which for me has a whiff of Radiohead about it (no bad thing, I love Radiohead), closing out the track with ethereal strings and harmonies… I think you’d be hard pressed to say there is a better track to close the album out with.
Definitely their best album since The Resistance, and possibly their best since Absolution, The Wow! Signal sees Muse return to their very best. A mix of classic Muse and some fresher sounds, almost all of which work (including the track with Ellie Goulding, surprisingly), this would be an album you would suggest to someone who has never heard the band before, which is a rare thing to say when you’re ten studio albums deep into a career. Fans will love it, and I severely doubt new comers who like this genre won’t be delving into their back catalogue – there’s definitely a wow factor going on here!!
