Muse The Wow Signal Review: Their Best Album in 20 Years Turns Private Heartbreak Into Cosmic Rock

[TeddyWhelan]

Muse released their tenth studio album The Wow Signal on June 26 and the critical response has been the warmest the band has received in over a decade, with NME calling it their most consistent and satisfying album since Black Holes and Revelations in 2006. The album is named after the mysterious 72-second radio signal detected by Ohio State University's Big Ear telescope in August 1977, a transmission so intense and unusual that astronomer Jerry Ehman simply wrote Wow in the margin of the printout. The album explores cosmic mystery and the possibility of contact with something greater than ourselves, but its emotional core is deeply personal: Matt Bellamy wrote much of it after separating from his wife Elle Evans in mid-2025.

The ten tracks run 45 minutes and represent Muse at their most focused since the early 2000s. The opener The Dark Forest is compared by Louder Sound to a blockbuster sequel to Knights of Cydonia. Cryogen has an Absolution-sized chorus and a metal breakdown that recalls classic Muse. Hexagons, which references the geometrically perfect hexagonal storm at Saturn's north pole, is being mentioned alongside Citizen Erased and Butterflies and Hurricanes as one of their finest existential rock epics. The Ellie Goulding feature on Hush splits opinion but Be With You, a majestic heartbreak ballad described by Classic Rock as having strong Freddie Mercury overtones, is already being called one of their best ballads. Space Debris closes the album with an orchestral fade-out comparing two lovers growing apart to broken satellites falling out of orbit.

The album benefits significantly from the production of Dan Lancaster, the band's touring keys player who previously sharpened Bring Me The Horizon's Nex Gen. Metacritic has the album on 76 based on seven critic scores. Kerrang gave it five stars, NME four. The North American tour begins in July with Bloc Party and Portugal The Man as support.

Muse - 'The Wow! Signal' review: space rock icons' best album in 20 yearswww.nme.com