The Wow! signal, in case you’re unaware, was a narrowband radio signal detected by the Big Ear radio telescope in 1977, and although generally debunked since, was used to support the search for extraterrestrial life. If that sounds like such an interesting tidbit that even current-day Muse couldn’t screw it up, clearly you underestimate their ability to do just that.
An assessment that this writer came across years ago that’s really seemed to stick was “Muse make music for people who say things like “You, sir, have won the internet””. It’s a loaded charge, but one that’s only felt more accurate as time has passed. The implications are of a pompous, self-serious pseudo-intellectualism that’s miles away from as deep as it believes it is. Thus, the band who closed their last album with a song called We Are Fucking Fucked appear to fit that bill nicely.
And yet, you can’t even dub Muse an easy target, because they’re barely a target at all these days. Among their stadium-rock ilk, they’ve fit the rare niche of a band who arguably tries too hard and still struggles to put up lasting results. Drones has aged horribly; Simulation Theory was no good to begin with; and Will Of The People barely even exists. In the grand scheme of rock music (even mainstream rock music), Muse have ended up being awfully easy to not pay attention to. What was once seen as a space-age flagship of progressive rock on the commercial stage has effectively become flanderised into what can only be described as ‘modern Muse’. You see the pomp and circumstance and lip service paid to exploration, and that’s it.
You could even argue that The Wow! Signal is more of that. For one, any thematic relevance to the actual Wow! signal is on the thinnest possible tangent, at best. For another, you can plainly see where Muse are trying to curry favour with a disillusioned audience through blatant repurposing of past aesthetics and motifs. The Dark Forest has the same gallop as Knights Of Cydonia; later on, Cryogen’s opening squall isn’t too far removed from Plug In Baby’s. A thin, obvious bout of nostalgia-baiting is not out of the question for modern Muse, after all.
But to stop at that is to deny how this is the most immediate that Muse have felt in years. So much of the criticism around their recent work centred on how they’d lost their way, and the spark that made them great in the past had been snuffed out. Even through plain superficiality, though, The Wow! Signal proves that isn’t the case. Muse do seem to understand what they’re capable of this time, and that helps a lot. As liberally as The Sickness In You & I and Unravelling draw from modern alt-metal, there’s an unmistakable Museness in and around it that keeps everything in working order. The propensity to use ‘proper rock’ as a crutch like Drones did isn’t here, and The Wow! Signal is all the better for it.
As a result, this feels like a Muse album, not just an album with the name slapped onto it. It’s an important point to make for what hasn’t been the case in a while, arguably since The Resistance in 2009. To be clear, The Wow! Signal isn’t as good as that album, but it speaks volumes when even the traits of their maligned recent work can hold value here. In particular, the ‘80s influences that turned Simulation Theory into Ready Player One: The Album are wheeled back out with some additional taste. The disco of Nightshift Superstar is nicely firmed up by the prominent fluidity of Chris Wolstenholme’s bass, and for as tight as the parallels to Philip Bailey and Phil Collins’ Easy Lover as Hexagons’ intro can be, it’s not lampshaded as a highlight, either. If anything, it’s the former that juts out more as the album’s poppier concession, albeit with the form and fullness to feel like it still belongs.
It’s the production from Dan Lancaster that really feels like an attributing factor there, best known for works in a more contemporary rock space that’s often felt passed over by a band of Muse’s stature. Even if there isn’t a locked-in style to earmark Lancaster, the fact that The Wow! Signal is this sharp and powerful a listen feels as though it counts for something. All the while, once again, it still feels like a Muse album. The heavier swings of The Sickness Of You & I and Unravelling aren’t too unbelievable a pivot (and probably work better than the majority of alt-metal bands they’re pinched from). Conversely, the opulence of Shimmering Scars and Be With You is pure Muse all day long, both making good on the regality that’s felt out of their grasp since at least The 2nd Law in 2012. (Perhaps it’s no coincidence that Be With You toys around with an EDM kick partway through.)
Worth giving its own mention among those is Hush which, by being a collaboration with Ellie Goulding, is practically baiting the incredulous scoffs of ex-fans jaded by Muse’s recent works. And that’s not an illogical reaction; on paper, a collab like this reads like an early-2010s Q Magazine editorial’s wet dream. And yet, as Matt Bellamy’s teased-out vocals and a much-welcome return to Goulding’s ethereality play together, and a wonderfully dark sound palette emphasises every moment, it makes for what might be Muse’s best song in over a decade. It’s at least up there, just for how severely expectations are bucked on practically every front.
In fact, you can apply that The Wow! Signal as a whole. Not to oversell this, by any means—Muse are a band who have legit classic albums in the British rock canon, of which this isn’t that high up there—but the praise is duly deserved. Considering how great a fall Muse seemed to take over the last decade, crawling back up with this is more than welcome—tried-and-true, but also spit-shined to a nice degree. What’s more, the characteristic effort of Muse hasn’t gone away, and to see it pay off for a change does make for a pretty satisfying listen. That’s the biggest surprise to come from them in ages.
For fans of: Foo Fighters, Thirty Seconds To Mars, modern Bring Me The Horizon
‘The Wow! Signal’ by Muse is out now on Warner Music / Helium-3.
Words by Luke Nuttall
