Here comes the science bit, concentrate: all you space nerds out there will be well aware that ‘the Wow! signal’ was of course a narrowband radio signal detected by Ohio State University’s Big Ear radio telescope back in August 1977. So intense was its strength and so mysterious was its frequency that it was chalked up to being from bloody aliens. Astounded astronomer Jerry R. Ehman simply scribbled ‘Wow!’ on the initial report.
Ever since their gothic sci-fi masterpiece 2001 album ‘Origin Of Symmetry’, Muse have been largely preoccupied with matters of life up there and who’s really pulling the strings down here. For frontman Matt Bellamy, his obsession with the stars, conspiracy and the great beyond seems to come from an undying need for answers, to quench a thirst for something missing.
Written in the wake of his split from model, actress and mother of two his children Elle Evans, Bellamy faced a profound unknown he’d not felt in decades, and so drew on the feelings and – consciously or not – the sounds of the band’s earlier days. ‘The Wow! Signal’ opener ‘The Dark Forest’ feels like a blockbuster sequel to ‘Black Holes & Revelations’’ Ennio Morricone space Western rocker ‘Knights Of Cydonia’, as the band gallop above swooping strings as Bellamy earnestly delivers the album’s M.O. to “launch a pulse out into the abyss, reach out a hand to the lonely”.
The riff to ‘Cryogen’ almost sounds like Bellamy’s fingers are straining to play ‘Plug In Baby’ before wandering around the fretboard, complete with an ‘Absolution’-sized chorus and a metal-edged breakdown from their latter day playbook. Meanwhile, ‘Hexagons’ is to be filed alongside ‘Citizen Erased’ and ‘Butterflies And Hurricanes’ as one of Muse’s finest modern existential rock epics, as the frontman looks for healing and connection, “haunted by futures I can’t avoid”.
There are pleasant shades of difference. The terribly titled ‘Shimmering Scars’ is a Muse Bond theme but a little more subtle and noir as a frail and broken Bellamy asks “was I not enough?”, while ‘The Sickness In You And I’ marries Prince to Metallica with a lot more harmony than you’d imagine, lifted by an almighty yearning pop chorus.
Then there’s potential album highlight ‘Hush’. When fans heard it was going to feature a guest vocal from Ellie Goulding and a co-write from Hurts‘ Theo Hutchcraft, they may have assumed some EDM-tinged pop balladry rather than this menacing almost Billie Eilish-esque electro-rock-meets-Eurovision rager that calls to “forget the world together, choke out the noise forever”. ‘Space Debris’ might be the most Muse song title going, but they’ve not allowed quite as much breathing space or grace as this since ‘Endlessly’ on ‘Absolution’ as an unguarded Bellamy mourns love drifting away.
The missteps are minor. Following in the chrome platform boot footsteps of ‘Supermassive Blackhole’ and ‘Panic Station’, the divisive and questionable Daft Punk-made-human disco funk of ‘Nightshift Superstar’ (a tight-knit triumph from bassist Chris Wolstenholme and drummer Dom Howard) adds some levity and bombast in the first half, while the electro-pop warble of ‘Be With You’ is rather on the saccharine side – tailor-made for a stadium fireworks and confetti moment – but makes a lot more sense in the flow of the record.
As we heard on the lean launch single ‘Unravelling’, you can’t help but feel that Muse have greatly benefitted from the guidance and production of Dan Lancaster (their live keys player and slick metal wunderkind who sharpened up the cyberpunk punch of Bring Me The Horizon’s ‘Nex Gen’). It’s still bonkers of course, but more focussed than their last few efforts. Away from the AI fictions of ‘Simulation Theory’ and jaded soapboxing of ‘Will Of The People’, ‘The Wow! Signal’ feels human and authentic.
In rekindling their own purpose, the Teignmouth trio have delivered undoubtedly their most consistent and satisfying album since ‘Black Holes & Revelations’ – doubling up as either a knowing gift to the fans or at least a response to any concerns that Muse had long disappeared too far up their own supermassive blackholes. Look up to the sky with a sigh of relief or a simple ‘wow’.
