mvm.

Hard rock true to tonal with a clear notion, does Will of the People looks to be Muse’s best music in years?

Let’s push the emperors into the ocean//: A message bottled clearest on the last single, We Are Fucking Fucked, Muses’ ninth studio album (and possible seventh album straight to number 1, might I add) Will of the People is a soundtrack for the toppling of giants and the re-liberation of a once lost society.

While Marilyn Manson might have something to say with Will Of The <Beautiful> People, it’s a cathartic album boasting heavy Muse that we missed in Simulation Theory but also bringing Bellamy’s classical training with his piano ballads that are always empowering in their own right.

I never believed that I would concede
And get myself blown asunder
You strung me along, I thought I was strong
But now you have pushed me under

Won’t Stand Down, Muse

While synth-heavy Compliance and angry-distorted Slipknot-enfused Won’t Stand Down reflects a charged nation of aggressively-sexy hard rock ‘riffage’, both Liberation and Ghosts (How Can I Move On) shows a more poignant and reflective thought almost post-war as Muse toy and fray between the piano ballads of 2004’s Absolution and orchestral archetypes on The Resistance of ’09.

While You Make Me Feel Like It’s Halloween is a musical parody of The Addams Family, the supercharged guitar inflections and Dom’s use of the bell ride also plays homage to Royal Blood’s approach on new discotheque 2021’s Typhoons and seems like it fits on another project as it doesn’t really play its part in the conversation of a rising rebellion. It will do damn well nearing October’s festivities though, that’s for sure, with it perhaps featuring on all too-many film soundtracks. Kill or Be Killed feeds into the Assassin and Reapers of a Terminator-themed ideology as a nation is ultimately culled. It’s raw, quite frankly explosive and will almost certainly do well when their live shows hit our stadiums next year.

Verona hits all the high octave-notes and airy atmosphere of Resistance again and the video-game 80s synth notion we saw in Simulation Theory that wasn’t that all well received, despite me enjoying immensely. But feels like another parody to Stranger Things and doesn’t seem to add really anything to the pack. Euphoria is a hopeful number, offering strong and catchy settlements lyrically with running bass lines keeping us on our toes. We finally end on operatic We Are Fucking Fucked, a cut-throat damage piece telling us like it is – we’re at deaths door, another world war / wildfires and earthquakes I foresaw / a life in crisis / mutated virus / tsunamis of hate are gonna drown us – a likely event should we not listen to Matt’s outcry throughout, and ends in a frenetic frenzy bringing a fairly emphatic album to a close.

A strong contender offering a clear message that was perhaps lost on 2018’s predecessor, Simulation Theory, the ninth in line s a bold and empowering movement for change that has been fiddled and screwed tight into Matt’s songwriting tonality already. It doesn’t have a whack on Black Holes and Revelations, – arguably the most entrancing of Muses’ back catalogue – but considering that that album was released a good 15 years ago now, Will Of The People shows that Muse haven’t lost their tenacity regarding flexed music of unadulterated rock – but just sprucing up their sides somewhat.

Another revolutionary album about rising against the rich and powerful? Yes please. Just tell me where to enlist.