Musa: Wow! Signals Review – Massive space rock silliness…but somehow surprisingly accurate? | Musa

forOnly three minutes into Muse’s tenth album elapse before the chorus appears: a chorus that doesn’t so much sing as sing in Latin, like something you might hear on the soundtrack of an occult-themed horror film. “Sanctus!” They cry. “Dominus!” And inevitably “Lucifer!”

The chorus is harder to listen to than you might think, as they fight against everything that happens during The Wow! Signal’s opening track, The Dark Forest: an electronic bass line that’s not a million miles away from the ones you used to get on hi-NRG recordings tracking gay clubs in the mid-’80s; A section of thread is cut as if their lives depended on it; A distorted electric guitar plays frenetic prog-metal arpeggios; And singer Matt Bellamy expresses it violently through a chanson-like vocal melody: “The stars extinguish themselves in fear!” He sings. “We’ll all beg for extinction!”

It tells you so much about Muse that one doubts their fans will welcome this as proof that all is well in their world again. They broke away from the flood of post-OK Computer artists with a simple way of dialing everything up to 11. As their sound became bombastic and melodramatic, the lyrics addressed not Radiohead-style existential grumbling but irrational conspiracy theories, grotesquely drawn dystopias and the end of the world. They’ve sold millions of records, but as Bellamy recently admitted, the trio’s last two albums have been received by critics and followers alike as the sound of a struggling band: 2018’s Simulation Theory attempted to set off in a new direction influenced by ’80s pop, which included collaborations with R&B producer Timbaland and Swedish pop act Shellback; 2022’s Will of the People was a completely bizarre album, a collection of songs that deliberately recalled Muse’s earlier hits, released in place of a more successful album.

One theory is that Moses wavered because the world was increasingly conforming to their way of thinking: starkly drawn dystopian fantasies and irrational conspiracy theories were now all the rage. Moreover, it became increasingly clear that right-wing liberals were taking some of Muse’s more mature lyrical fantasies seriously: Glenn Beck, a conservative conservative, seemed to think that 2009’s concept album “Resistance” was a “dead” prophecy about what was coming our way.

He talks about how hot things are in the Muse world, and it’s Wow! Signal means to take it down a notch, being primarily concerned with the existence of extraterrestrials (the title refers to a 1977 incident when a radio telescope picked up a mysterious signal apparently emanating from the constellation Sagittarius) rather than the thought police and mind virus. It’s still a fairly mature old cheese – this is an album in which a duet with Ellie Goulding begins with “It’s getting closer – calm the cobra!” — but it’s perhaps unlikely to attract the attention of the most serious nerds out there, especially since it often seems to use sci-fi stuff as a metaphor for a troubled love affair.

Meanwhile, the music happily updates the ornate sound of 2006’s Black Holes and Revelations: amidst the huge riffs, Count Dracula’s keyboard organ, the guitar solos, the rock arpeggios and the vocals of Bellamy – a man never afraid to leave teeth marks on the scene – there’s a noticeable pop influence. Muse has clearly recently spent some time in the company of Daft Punk’s Discovery: the Nightshift Superstar works a distinct French disco influence into the mix; Some of the guitar playing seems to be derived from the same aerodynamic playing on the Discovery. If you stripped away all the accompanying audio volumes and perhaps softened the lyrics a touch – “Everything I ever dreamed of has fled to the stars!” – Shimmering Scars could be presented as a straightforward piano pop song, and it’s a great one at that.

Of course, the accompanying audio volume is kind of the point. It goes without saying that it can get a bit exhausting, and that there are moments when all but Muse fanatics might feel inclined to hit the pause button and go lie down somewhere quiet, or at least somewhere where no one’s playing the organ like Count Dracula. But this happens less often than you’d expect, perhaps because there’s something strangely corny at the heart of The Wow! signal. Muse writes melodically powerful songs, able to withstand anything the arrangements throw at them: what sticks with you after In Sickness You and I comes to a close is not the flourishes of the operatic backing vocals, or the long high-drama synth coda, but its chorus. Or maybe it’s because there’s something strangely admirable about his commitment to a completely preposterous part, his refusal to bow down to any idea of ​​maturity or good taste and instead doubles down in his own world. If you don’t want to live there all the time, a visit will never be boring.

Alexis listened this week to

Mitchum Jacob – When I’m With You Divina
A beautiful and relaxing soul based on Latin American (percussion) and Lagos (Afrobeat horns): perfect for the current climate conditions.