Muse’s new album, their 10th studio release, The Wow! Signal, lands this week, and we’ve been fortunate to receive an early listen. An unusual, narrow radio signal captured by the Big Ear radio telescope at Ohio State University on 15 August, 1977, inspired the album’s title. The 72-second signal (the longest window of recording available to Big Ear) was unusually strong, and uncharacteristically loud in contrast to the surrounding noise. It was intriguing, as it sat at or very near the frequency of neutral hydrogen, seemingly of extraterrestrial origin. Astronomer Jerry R. Ehman observed the anomaly when reviewing data and wrote “wow!” beside it on the computer printout, which led to the common usage of ‘The Wow! Signal’.
This, to my knowledge, marks the first time a Muse studio album has included an outside co-writing credit. Dan Lancaster, who plays guitars, keyboards, and vocals, is the touring band’s unofficial fourth member. He’s also noted for his involvement with Blink-182 and Bring Me The Horizon, earning three Grammy nominations for his work with them. He’s a successful producer, songwriter, and artist in production and mixing. This album’s co-writing and co-production are part of his expanded partnership with Muse.
It feels like this album has been coming for a long time now, and with five singles already released, it’s been something of a musical jigsaw puzzle as we’ve tried to ascertain how the concept would come together. I tried a couple of different ways to form this review, but ultimately decided on a quick track-by-track summary, so let’s get into it:
“The Dark Forest” is the opening track and, lyrically, it references the Dark Forest theory, which suggests that broadcasting signals into space is an invitation for obliteration by another civilisation. The Dark Forest theory is one of the proposed explanations of the Fermi Paradox, which lies in the contrast between the belief that extraterrestrial life must exist and the overwhelming lack of evidence for it. The song kicks off with a quick Doppler-effect transiting spaceship, before it bursts into a prog-rock Arabian Nights percussive gallop with swirling synthesiser. Halfway through we are hit head-on with harmonies in Latin that fall away briefly before returning, incorporated into the first intense blast of the album. I’m pretty rusty with my Latin these days, but I think I picked up ‘’sanctus dominus deus’ (Holy Lord God), and ‘Altissimus Machina’ (Highest machine), along with a few other snippets. I look forward to discovering the full text to better understand it. This track well and truly lays the foundation for what follows.
“Nightshift Superstar”, the most recent single, is the Chris Wolstenholme bass spectacular that I reviewed previously. It’s a tremendously catchy, funk-filled intergalactic upbeat track, and I’ve found myself repeatedly humming/singing this tune at all hours and locations.
“Shimmering Scars” is the most beautiful and magical track on the album. Beginning with a delicate piano line, this is breathtakingly emotional, and has made me cry every time I’ve listened. My opinion, with respect, is that Matt Bellamy is always at his best when the music is rooted in angst and heartbreak, and this song is filled with despair, woven atop a combination of pipe organ, ethereal harmonies, and a powerful rhythm section. Anyone who has suffered through the agony of a failed relationship will feel this one. Sublime.
“Cryogen”, released a couple of months ago and also recently reviewed, has been the standout single to date. It was hearing this song for the first time that made me realise something special was coming.
“Be With You” is the track that took me a bit of time to form a positive relationship with, yet has come to be one of my favourites on the album. I think it won me over when I heard it in context of the album overall and the way it just…works, I guess. The pipe organ returns in a more prominent form before the song takes a techno turn and we’re off again, shooting through the Universe courtesy of Muse in full bombastic flight.
“Hexagons” references, I believe, the hexagonal storm on Saturn, where competing atmospheric air flows have manipulated the jet stream into a geometrically perfect, endless storm system at the planet’s northern pole. An extended, building guitar riff surrounds you before it eases back momentarily with breathy Bellamy vocals, but only just long enough to prepare your ears for an onslaught of gorgeous, layered harmonies and another synth-supported guitar riff. The power of Dominic Howard’s drums in this is something to behold, too.
“The Sickness in You & I” is my favourite track on The Wow! Signal. When I first heard it I actually shouted out loud (to myself, no less) “Oh Mother of All Fuckities!”. The pulse through it is simultaneously dance-able and menacing, and there’s an immensity to the instrumentation that makes my chest ache. Just when you think you’ve got a handle on it all, in comes metal shredding and double-kick drums, and it’s a glorious maelstrom of Muse insanity. The shifting-tempo ping-ponging ending is a genius segue into the next track, too.
“Unravelling”, the first single which was released exactly one year ago, was the first whiff that “old Muse” had returned from the abyss, with its meaty bass and guitar riffs and those massive drums.
“Hush” is the collab between Muse and featured artist, Ellie Goulding. There’s one apparently derivative aspect to this song, being Billie Eilish’s ‘Bad Guy’, which came to mind when I first heard it, and I also thought of Imagine Dragons’ ‘Sharks’ at times. This is not a criticism. The way the song has been constructed, particularly with the musical conversation between Goulding and Bellamy, is a knockout. Collaborations sometimes make me nervous, to be honest, but I bloody love this.
“Space Debris” is the space rock waltz which farewells the album. An ode to lost love and the emotional debris of a broken relationship, it’s intimate yet soaring, leaving you feeling like you’re adrift in the vastness of the Universe, and a fitting end to an absolutely massive, epic album.
This is the soundtrack for the once-fanciful Orwellian dystopia in which we now reside. It’s rich with melodic, cell-shifting bass lines that pull no punches, and drums that you can feel from the soles of your feet, all sonically beating you about the ears and making your heart palpitate. Matt Bellamy’s vocals are brilliant, perfectly aligned with angelic and urgent harmonies throughout. The crispness of the instruments, the harmony layers, the concept, the immensity…fucking amazing. It’s War of the Worlds mixed with all the best of Muse, then put into a blender and blasted into orbit.
This is the Muse album I’ve waited years to hear.
FIVE STARS (OUT OF FIVE)
The Wow! Signal is released on the 26th June – pre-order it HERE
