The fact that Muse are entertaining the idea of this record ending up on The West End might have sent alarm bells ringing. And sure enough, the Devon trio’s seventh ‘long player’ is an on-the- nose concept album which sticks doggedly to a predictable ‘fuck the Military-Industrial complex’ narrative.
The storyline is essentially this: ‘Man loses love, joins the army, gets brainwashed, becomes a drone, realises the error of his ways, rebels, falls in love’. The band had talked about Drones being a return to their hard rock roots, eschewing the weirdness of The Resistance and ill-advised dubstep of The 2nd Law. And it is true that they’ve reined things in a little (relatively speaking), but they haven’t recaptured that old, thrillingly interstellar glory in the process. Back In Black producer Mutt Lange is onboard for his no-nonsense approach, and he apparently suggested keeping the lyrics simple. It might work when you have AC/DC’s riffs and the songs are about girls, but when you want to comment on remote control warfare, it results in a juvenile “wake up, sheeple!” call-to-arms over roided-up blues riffs.
‘Psycho’ is a main offender (the ‘Drill Sergeant’ lead-in is painful, having been done so effectively by REM before), with its “your ass is mine” hook and a riff that they’ve played live for aeons. It’s not a great riff either, suggesting the well of inspiration wasn’t in full flow on this occasion. Thus, while their technical ability is without question, they really don’t have the songs to make a memorable musical out of this.
The ten-minute ‘The Globalist’ is a Morricone tribute that starts with the familiar trope of military whistling and fails to fulfil its ‘epic’ remit, fizzling out rather than igniting. The designated ballad sounds oddly like a boy band tune. ‘Mercy’ and ‘Defector’ are better efforts. Most of the rest, however, reminds me of the kind of hard rock used to torture insurgents. You could argue that Muse aren’t taking this seriously; that its pomp and cheesiness is intentionally tongue-in-cheek. They need to remember, however, that Spinal Tap were actually entertaining.