The Wow! Signal
Muse · Alternative Rock
“You spent twenty years promising Black Holes 2 and finally delivered it, which means your big comeback is a sequel to who you used to be.”
Matt, you have been threatening to write Black Holes and Revelations 2 for twenty years, and on The Wow! Signal you finally did it, which the critics are calling your best album in two decades and Sally is calling a backhanded compliment in a space helmet. A 76 on Metacritic, NME swooning about space rock icons returning to form, a cosmic concept about contact with something greater. It is genuinely your most cohesive, least bloated record in ages, and a lot of that is because you stopped writing AI fan fiction and let an actual human heartbreak in. Because the open secret is the divorce. Stripped of the jaded soapboxing of Will of the People and the simulation cosplay of Simulation Theory, you sound human again. The Dark Forest opens strong, Hexagons is a proper Pink Floyd meets Steven Wilson centerpiece, Cryogen and the neon disco-funk of Nightshift Superstar prove you can still build a stadium out of nothing. When Muse aim, Muse still hit. Then the back half wanders. Space Debris is a dull plod that meanders five and a half minutes without ever building to anything, Be With You is the slow and soppy ballad nobody wanted from Muse, and even fans admit the formula can read as paint-by-numbers self-parody. Best in twenty years is real praise. It also quietly tells you how the last twenty went.
Genuinely your most focused and emotionally honest record in a generation. Trading concept gimmicks for real feeling suits you, and at its peak this is the band that made people fall in love with you in the first place.
The back half drifts into space
“Reviewers singled out Space Debris as a dull plod that meanders for five and a half minutes without building to anything, and Be With You as slow and soppy.”
The fix Cut the filler. A tight 9 track version of this is a triumph; the bloat is the only thing dragging it back to earth.
The formula edges toward self-parody
“Even sympathetic fans concede the Muse template can read as paint-by-numbers parody of itself, big falsetto, bigger riff, cosmic dread on repeat.”
The fix Keep chasing the human angle that powers this record, not the stadium reflexes. The divorce wrote your best songs here, not the synth presets.
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