Muse: Will of the People — millenarian arena-rockers bring exuberance and despair

In Last Judgment paintings, the damned tumble into hell with eyes bulging and tongues stuck out in grimaces, their faces taut with terror or stretched by howls of anguish. Meanwhile, at the other end of the canvas, the righteous file into heaven with neutral expressions, restraining the temptation to indulge in jubilant grins and fist pumps.

Muse’s new album unfolds according to a similar layout. At one end of its own canvas, opening track “Will of the People” envisions the sunny uplands of a world transformed for the better. At the other end, unambiguously titled closing number “We Are Fucking Fucked” depicts the opposite outcome. In politer parlance, we are doomed.

The UK trio of Matt Bellamy (vocals, lead guitar), Dominic Howard (drums) and Chris Wolstenholme (bass) have been ploughing their end-times furrow since 1999’s Showbiz. They are millenarian arena-rockers whose outlook derives from sci-fi dystopias and conspiracy theories rather than religion. Their ninth album has been inspired by the unfolding catastrophes of the present era: war, disease, climate breakdown, authoritarianism. The focus is sharper than the speculative flim-flam of its metaverse-influenced predecessor, 2018’s Simulation Theory. The music is better too.

“We need a revolution,” Bellamy cries on the insurrectionary title track. But the song’s enjoyably familiar glam-rock stomp announces a contrary message. Instead of trying to reinvent the wheel, Muse have chosen to hew to their strengths on Will of the People. Thus we get Queen-influenced pomp-rock (“Liberation”), melodramatic piano balladry (“Ghosts (How Can I Move On)”) and a beefy synth-pop anthem about mind control (“Compliance”). “Kill or Be Killed” makes a novel move into heavy metal, but Bellamy’s vocal in the song evokes a familiar stylistic lodestar, Radiohead.

Exuberance and despair are indistinguishable in the singer’s theatrical wail. However grim the scenario, he can’t help but sound like he’s having a whale of a time. Unlike the mismatched expressions between the saved and the damned in a religious painting, he injects the same degree of imaginative excitement into the album’s notions of salvation and perdition. The result is a cartoon version of a Last Judgment scene — fast, colourful, and with the dial set for entertainment rather than instruction.

★★★★☆

‘Will of the People’ is released by Warner Records