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8.0
108190
8.0 |
NME
With space-age rockabilly and EDM machine gun beats, this bizarre new album sees Muse retreat from the real world and into a 'Tron'-style pastiche of their own adolescence. You’ll be ashamed to tell anyone how much you love it
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8.0
108188
8.0 |
All Music
While Simulation Theory might appear to be overly polished mainstream trickery - all part of the simulation! - it's purely Muse at heart, successfully merging electronic-pop songcraft with their typically urgent, stadium rock foundation
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8.0
108230
8.0 |
Clash
Once more, they’ve turned up a kooky electronic rock fantasia that’s as wonderful as it is bonkers
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8.0
108251
8.0 |
Evening Standard
It might be the band’s response to the collapse of Western democracy, it might be a response to being told to tidy their rooms — but they have rarely sounded so inspired
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6.0
108264
6.0 |
Pitchfork
On their eighth album, the trio again pivot to the present, using current affairs, pop culture tropes, and contemporary electronics to aim for Spotify omnipotence
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6.0
108231
6.0 |
Drowned In Sound
Simulation Theory largely sounds like the work of band who have the pressure off and are just going with it – definitely not a bad thing
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6.0
108189
6.0 |
DIY
If a Muse album isn’t meant to make you laugh, gasp and double-take in its ridiculousness, then we don’t wanna hear it
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6.0
108191
6.0 |
Q
There is enough here to suggest that Muse have found a new way forward. Print edition only
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6.0
108192
6.0 |
The Guardian
It’s still the less poppy moments that are most exciting: the cascading arpeggios of Blockades, giving way to furious power chords. Or Algorithm, with its none-more-jackbooted synth bass line, urgent strings
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6.0
108193
6.0 |
The Irish Times
Even when Muse almost become a parody act of themselves, they’re still thoroughly entertaining
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6.0
108194
6.0 |
The Observer
This is Muse very much in VR play mode, riffing hard on their love of 80s visual culture
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5.0
108201
5.0 |
Sputnik Music (staff)
A massive underachievement with respect to the band’s talent level, but at least they’re not lying to us about who they are anymore. This is Muse in 2018 – take them or leave them
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5.0
108239
5.0 |
Consequence Of Sound
The band's more-is-more mentality often drowns out their best qualities and moments
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4.0
108244
4.0 |
musicOMH
There’s obviously still an audience for Muse, given by the size of the venues they still sell out, and this will definitely please the die-hards, but most of Simulation Theory simply fizzles out without leaving much of an impression
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4.0
108253
4.0 |
The Independent
An overly polished, politically paranoid mess
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4.0
108196
4.0 |
Rolling Stone
The cover of Simulation Theory looks like the poster to Ready Player One and Muse’s mining of the Eighties seems just as deep: a set of references that have already carried weight for years
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3.5
108237
3.5 |
Under The Radar
As art, it is immature and vacant. As fun, it barely registers.
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2.0
108467
2.0 |
Spectrum Culture
An effective cure for insomnia
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