Review Summary: Signal the apocalypse: Muse have released a decent album.
It has been
twenty years since Muse last released a good album. It has been
fourteen years since Muse last released an album with more than two good songs. And here we are, in 2026, and the once-giant trio have finally started to remember what made them massive in the first place. Don't get me wrong: new effort
The Wow! Signal is still very much a Muse album. It's over-the-top, it's ridiculous, the lyrics are dreadful. But, for the first time in two decades, it isn't
bad.
It has felt for so long that Muse have been a caricature of themselves, releasing songs that were mere imitations of their beloved hits. And
The Wow! Signal is not safe from this. Single 'Cryogen' begins with a riff that is simply a royalty-free 'Plug In Baby'. Muse pull Ellie Goulding out of her pit of irrelevance for 'Hush', and try to make a heavy Billie Eilish song with her. It doesn't work. Mid-album track 'Be With You' is, in a word,
dreadful - an almost unbearable retread of
The Resistance sickener 'Guiding Light'.
But there is an authenticity to
The Wow! Signal that has been missing from Muse's records for over a decade. Lead single 'Unravelling' features one of the best breakdowns the band have put to tape. Closer 'Space Debris' is heartfelt enough to warrant a second listen. 'The Sickness In You & I' has such a killer riff that I can only imagine how good it would feel to experience live. Production is excellent throughout
The Wow! Signal, something that absolutely cannot be said about Muse's last two albums. Drums have energy, guitars have power, bass cuts through the noise. It's difficult not to bob your head to the weakest songs on the album.
Muse are such a baffling band. They clearly still have it in them to write music that is actually good, so why have they taken twenty years to do so?
The Wow! Signal is not a classic by any means, but it at least gives us hope that Muse aren't completely dead and buried.
Can't wait for them to blow it in a few years time.
