Muse has transcended their song and in recent years shone light on the shadow cast by Radiohead and have established themselves as a leading name in rock and roll world. Muse spent a large part of the beginning of their career distancing themselves from the juggernaut of UK alternative rock that Radiohead established in the early 90s. They aim to continue this sound in their new album Drones, set to hit shelves June 9 via Warner Bros. By taking themes that are familiar but genuine and crafting them into an epic narrative, Muse recalibrate their magnificence and pull off what is easily their best album in a decade.Over the last decade, Muse has crafted their sound to rock opera heights manifesting a new era of arena rock. The decision to renew their relationship with their core instruments and run with it in a way that didn't try to replicate a glamourised Muse era gone by was irrefutably an intelligent one. Muse have always proven themselves as the ultimate album band, it's just their last two records have leaned more towards the ridiculous than the sublime. All the while the title track and parting word on Drones is, well, a Gregorian choir of Matt Bellamys. 'Aftermath' is like a reincarnation of U2 and Mary J Blige's 'One' while 'The Globalist' whistles its way through a Mexican standoff before rousing itself into a 'Knights of Cydonia' style epic. As such the close of Drones all gets a bit peculiar. The thing is, Muse aren't all too sure of what to do with their new-found liberation after spending the majority of their career waging war on the villainous brainwashers. 'You can't brainwash me/You've got a problem,' Bellamy spits in 'Defector' before a rallying cry to 'Revolt' arrives, wrapped in one of the band's most interesting choruses. Our protagonist has an epiphany about the value of their freedom, leading to every musical's staple song about overcoming adversity. After the indoctrination and transformation into a human drone, signalled in by the looming riffs and puppeteering commands of 'The Handler', comes the pivotal moment. When the band recently expressed interest in transforming the album into a musical, it's an idea that genuinely holds weight. But with Drones they've managed to carry it off in a way that offers something more interesting than a collection of subjective musings and neuroticisms. Muse's conspiratorial tendencies and lyrics of political disillusionment isn't new territory for the band. It's one of two interjections on the record, with the other marked by a JFK's speech referencing a covert and 'monolithic and ruthless conspiracy'. Recovery time from the massive opener is short-lived though, as your 'ass' soon belongs to the drill sergeant. 'You've taught me to lie without a trace/And to kill with no remorse,' Bellamy agonises, as the decision for Mutt Lange to take over production duties from Muse and Nero is proven to be a wise one. And while Drones never takes the form of the guitar-laden shrine of Origin of Symmetry, there's certainly a renewed sense of puritanism on the record, anchored by the Drones fable.Д«ellamy's near-instantaneous falsetto on opening track 'Dead Inside' and its subsequent battle with Dom Howard's military drumming shows that by 'loss of hope' they mean less self-wallowing and more lashings of catatonic despair. It's a move that follows two albums characterised by getting carried away with the labyrinth of possibilities available in the studio from the other side of the glass. The band find such unmanned objects deeply troubling, but it's not so much down to health and safety concerns as, in Matt Bellamy's own words, the fact they embody 'metaphorical psychopaths which enable psychopathic behaviour with no recourse.'ДЄs such, the path of Drones is dictated by skeleton forming a strong dystopian warning: through the course of 12 tracks Muse usher us through 'the journey of a human, from their abandonment and loss of hope, to their indoctrination by the system to be a human drone, to their eventual defection from their oppressors.' The band have painted their seventh album as an experience that saw them re-bond with their instruments. Muse's sombre warning against the danger of drones was nearly overshadowed in the crucial build-up to its release when Enrique Iglesias had an on-stage incident with one of the objects, resulting in plenty of blood and reconstructive surgery on his fingers.

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