How close are we really to Q-Day?

[HiggsField10]

Black Holes and Revelations came out in 2006. If this genuinely reaches that level it is the comeback album of the year in any genre not just rock. That record had Knights of Cydonia, Starlight, Supermassive Black Hole. The bar is very high

[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

[GlassKnight35]

The personal pain context makes sense when you hear Shimmering Scars and Be With You. Bellamy is not hiding behind science fiction metaphor on those tracks, he is directly expressing devastation. That vulnerability is what some of the more recent Muse albums completely lacked

[TheRock25]

Hexagons being compared to Citizen Erased is a claim I need to hear for myself before I believe it. But the Saturn storm concept is exactly the kind of Muse subject matter that works when they execute it. The planetary science nerd in me is sold on the premise at least

[CarlosBuddle]

The Wow Signal itself being real, a 1977 radio transmission that genuinely has never been explained, is the perfect Muse concept. It is science fact that sounds like science fiction. Bellamy has been circling this territory for his entire career

[FairDos47]

Ellie Goulding featuring on a Muse album sounds like a misfire on paper but if Lancaster produced it with the same approach he took on Nex Gen it could be genuinely interesting. The dance production on that album was divisive but effective in the right context

[GhostRider14]

Bloc Party and Portugal The Man as support on the North American tour is a brilliant double bill. Both bands have their own devoted followings and both have enough sonic overlap with Muse to make the bill feel coherent rather than random

[Binary Hermit]

Will of the People was the album that genuinely concerned me about Muse's direction. A Greatest Hits pastiche that felt like a band on autopilot. If The Wow Signal is as focused and emotionally honest as reviewers are saying the contrast alone makes it feel like a comeback