Drones
Ditching the dubstep and EDM influences of 2012’s *The 2nd Law* in favor of old-fashioned rock ballistics, Muse’s seventh album is a wide-angle, bold-faced attack on the dehumanizing effects of modern war. Produced by Mutt Lange (famous in part for the tank-like sound of AC/DC and Def Leppard in their prime), *Drones* mashes together the high drama of late-\'90s Radiohead (“Psycho”) with the pyrotechnics of Van Halen (“Reapers”) and the grand sweep of both U2 and Pink Floyd—bands who have always chosen to go big or go home.
Muse records are largely blockbuster action flicks centered around a cryptocratic nightmare that can be explained on a billboard. Drones, their latest, proves no more capable of altering U.S. military strategy than The 2nd Law managed to singlehandedly end global warming. Mutt Lange produces.
Go ahead and make fun of Muse—they've seen all your insults of "prog-rock pretentiousness" and raised you a bombastic…
Muse, and Matt Bellamy in particular, make no bones about Drones: their seventh album is political through and through, a bold statement concerning the dehumanization of modern warfare.
A menacing stomper that sets the tone for all that follows - a mechanical military beat underlies a pining and mournful tone, sonically calling upon the drones to overtake the vulnerable.
I've only got 150 words/bullets and there are a lot of problems with this album/fish in this barrel. Let's start with that artwork: look at it. Stare at it for 53 minutes.
This is the heaviest the band has sounded in some time, and exuberant enough for you to ignore Bellamy’s clunky lyrics
Muse's latest sci-fi concept album takes its protagonist from a broken heart to World War III in just 52 minutes
Muse return to a more familiar landscape – a paranoid dystopian nightmare. CD review by Barney Harsent