Muse - Psycho

Muse don’t do small statements. Not for them the understated comeback or the low key arrival. So when their comeback track, ‘Psycho’, sees them riding into town on the 16-years-in-the-making mutant cousin of the riff from ’Personal Jesus’ spliced with Shania Twain’s ‘Man, I Feel Like A Woman’, nobody is likely to bat an eyelid. It’s expected. Encouraged even - who on earth wants to see Muse being anything other than so far over the top someone’s brought a parachute?

The pseudo drill sergeant and his ‘war cry’ - we’ve all seen how the band have been talking for years now. Super drones, thresholds and stone cold killers - the lyrics are packed with tin foil conspiracy and illuminati takedowns. Standard. For Muse, anyway. Anyone else, less so.

‘Psycho’, though, does mark a change for the band. Or at least, a return. In your face, it’s a step away from their more recent intergalactic albums. The space opera replaced with direct action, the dubstep with distortion, maybe it’s that long gestated riff that’s dragged them back (it made its first appearances live in 1999, dontcha know? - Ed), but underneath their lyrical content sits a massive rock band.

To try and place a formal marker on the standard good/bad scale would be as futile as it would be subjective. The battle lines on Muse were drawn over a decade ago - sides picked, opinions cemented. If you’re with them, you’ll forgive them any amount of lunacy. If not, every stratosphere scaled will send you further round the bend. But still, ‘Psycho’ manages to surprise. Matthew James Bellamy; our ‘ass’ certainly does not ‘belong’ to you. Get your own donkey. The cheek.