“If a thing’s worth doing, it’s worth over-doing,” once half-joked Queen’s guitarist Brian May, and as one of Muse’s big muses, the British rock trio take that full galactic maxim to the max in this entertainingly over-the-top 10th LP inspired themes of space and alien life. The name of the album comes from the narrowband 72-second radio signal, known as the “Wow! Signal” detected in 1977, one that had peculiar characteristics of duration and intensity which to some suggested the existence of some extraterrestrial intelligence. Here Matt Bellamy and co turn the dials up to 11 on voluminous delivery, range and dynamism, with opulent guitar arpeggio-rich solos, thunderous drums, meaty bass lines, pulsating synths, Matt Bellamy’s theatrical falsetto, and opener The Dark Forest even includes a choir, London’s Crouch End Festival Chorus, operatically singing: “Sanctus, signum
Dominus, Deus, Cometa, altissimus, Currus, machina. Navis, Lucifer . Kyrie Eleison.” While this song refers to the the so-called Dark Forest Theory of the universe, popularized by sci-fi author Liu Cixin, that no alien life has been found so far because advanced, intelligent civilizations hide from each other to avoid annihilation, stylistically you couldn’t get more Bohemian Rhapsody anywhere in the galaxy. Nightshift Superstar also has a choir, this time of children, but is more disco-funk, and has strong echoes of Justice, Daft Punk and ABBA. Shimmering Scars is slower, indulgent piano power pop, Cryogen goes full throttle with the kind of guitar rock solo inspired by Radiohead and a vocal performance akin the The Darkness, and a sent Muse into the stratosphere echoing their earlier work, or the album Black Holes and Revelations. Meanwhile Be With You treats us to full church organ and echoes of Freddie Mercury while also quoting Dylan Thomas, it moves into jittery synth pop. Hexagons goes full prog on the rippling argeggios and massive 80s drum sound, The Sickness In You & I enjoys a jagged rock, but one more interesting fusions is Hush, featuring Ellie Goulding on guest co-lead vocals, which has big meaty rock sound, but also some echoes of Billie Eilish, while closer Space Debris floats more quietly away like a dying star akin to love unravelling. “Orbit slow / As our bond decays / Like space debris / Love can drift away.” Absurdly dramatic yet impressively played, utterly hyperbolic, but as it really takes off, also enormous fun. So loud, aliens must be able to hear it from out there. Out on Warners.
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