{"id":558914,"date":"2026-06-28T21:15:18","date_gmt":"2026-06-28T21:15:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/558914\/"},"modified":"2026-06-28T21:15:18","modified_gmt":"2026-06-28T21:15:18","slug":"album-review-muse-wow-us-into-submission-on-the-wow-signal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/558914\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: Muse Wow Us Into Submission on &#8216;The Wow! Signal&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Wow! Signal, the U.K. neo-prog band&#8217;s latest, is a predictably heavy lift<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tThe 10th <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/t\/muse\/\" id=\"auto-tag_muse\" data-tag=\"muse\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Muse<\/a> album takes its name from the Wow! Signal, an unexplained radio transmission detected by a mind-blown astronomer in 1977 that\u2019s been held up as a possible example of extraterrestrial communication. The amount of pomp and pump Muse can slam into one song can have a certain wow-factor; tracks like \u201cUprising\u201d and \u201cSupermassive Black Hole\u201d made them leaders in fist-pumping arena rock. But as is often the case with this ostentatiously bombastic U.K. band, their music won\u2019t blow your mind so much as beat it into numb submission.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tOn The Wow! Signal, Muse work their signature pile-up of Queen and Korn and Radiohead, Seventies arena theatrics, Eighties synth-rock, Nineties alt-rock, and 2000s goth-metal. Frontman and mastermind Matt Bellamy returns to his longstanding theme of the endless search for something pure and real in a world of conformity, hypocrisy and alienation. On the pummeling \u201cCryogen\u201d the coldness of outer space is a metaphor for the loneliness of life. The single \u201cBe With You\u201d goes from cathedral organ to electronic throb to AOR orgy, as Bellamy sings about longing to connect.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"c-lazy-image__img lrv-u-background-color-grey-lightest lrv-u-width-100p lrv-u-display-block lrv-u-height-auto\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/themes\/vip\/pmc-rollingstone-2022\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\" data-lazy-src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Muse_WOW_Cover.jpg\" alt=\"\" data-lazy- data-lazy- height=\"1024\" width=\"1024\" decoding=\"async\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tThey go from the operatic extremity of \u201cThe Dark Forest\u201d (complete with a celestial chorale joining Bellamy to belt in Latin) to the dirge disco of \u201cNightshift Superstar\u201d\u00a0 to the lurching glam-slam balladry of \u201cShimmering Stars,\u201d Now and again, Muse find a good thing and stick with it. \u201cThe Sickness In You &amp; I\u201d is a wholly serviceable nu-metal anthem before it collapses into droning slapstick. \u201cHush\u201d gets a huge boost of warmth and personality via a breathy Ellie Goulding feature, arriving like a rainbow after a monsoon that just took away your house with the tide. <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tThe album ending \u201cSpace Debris\u201d is a stripped-down (for them) wallow where they find a nice melody and let it grow a little as Bellamy moans about how love can float away into the great beyond just like cosmic junk. Ironically, it\u2019s pretty down to earth, proof that it\u2019d be ok if Muse kept things a little less intense. Of course, if they did, they wouldn\u2019t be Muse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Wow! Signal, the U.K. neo-prog band&#8217;s latest, is a predictably heavy lift The 10th Muse album takes&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":558915,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[264],"tags":[18,117,19,17,78031,337],"class_list":["post-558914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-eire","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-muse","tag-music"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116829810639532751","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=558914"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558914\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/558915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=558914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=558914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=558914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}