If there's one thing Muse can do with their music, it's conjure feelings of nostalgia and thoughts about how good music used to be; thoughts like "Remember when Muse used to be a Rock band?" and "Remember when Matt Bellamy's ego was in check?". Simulation Theory is the tragic return to everything that sucks about Muse after the promising dead cat bounce that was Drones. Instead of great riffs on guitar/bass, we get synth-driven toss. Instead of dynamic anthems perfect for arena gigs and radio play for an audience of hungry young Rock fans, we get electronic drumbeats and noise made on some coffee-stained hipster shit's laptop.
Looking at the positives first, album opener "Algorithm" has some decent instrumentation and kicks things off in typical grand fashion for Muse. The electronic sound of the drums, bass and string accompaniments set the tone for the rest of the album too so if you like the song, you'll probably get some joy out of the record. However, for fans who can still remember when Muse wrote songs like "Hysteria", "Supermassive Black Hole" and "Knights Of Cydonia" that actually rocked, this harbinger of the band's switch back to electronic garbage teased in The Resistance and actualised in The 2nd Law won't fill you with any hope.
That's probably the biggest flaw with the album. You can argue that Muse not writing Rock songs is good or bad and that their reliance on 80s nostalgia (right down to the album cover that's more on-the-nose than an army of blackheads) helps or hinders the record but even if you choose the pessimistic route with both of those opinions, you must accept both of these things can work if the music is good and serves a decent purpose. The music and lyrics about hope and fighting back against arseholes in power are supposed to be inspiring for the millions unhappy with the current system but here's the kicker; they fuckin' ain't. A stadium Rock band releasing mainstream Pop is as inspirational as a series of flatlines in a coma ward.
The majority of tracks either resemble a dystopian Sci-Fi's cynical pastiche of what "future music" should sound like or the incidental score of a film/TV show desperate to remind people that 1980s synth music existed. However, there are some positive aspects. "Pressure" is the token fun song with catchy guitar riffs and vocal melodies, much like "Panic Station" on The 2nd Law (which was also the third track on that album too; totally not coordinated at all) and even some of the mediocre or annoying tracks contain elements that could've worked if used properly, like the gritty slide guitar riffs in the laughable Herbie Hancock nightmare "Propaganda".
Muse have acknowledged that this album was heavily inspired by music from the 80s so the Depeche Mode drumbeats ("Blockades") and John Carpenter synth ("The Void") are present without any attempt to mask them. It's admirable that Muse at least attempted to make the material sound unique to them instead of just flat-out copying another band's style but they would've been better off continuing in the direction they were headed with Drones or, at the very least, blending the 80s Pop aspects with heavier Rock ones. Instead, they end up sounding like Coldplay ("Thought Contagion") and Indie Pop bands found exclusively on the iPhone of an Instagram celebrity ("Something Human").
I rate the album 2/10. It doesn't inspire you to rise up against fascism (and if it does, where the fuck have you been for the last two years?!), it contains a collection of music that fails to stick with you unless you love electronic Pop, it sounds like Matt Bellamy regurgitating the same old lyrical shit he's been peddling for over a decade and it does 80s Pop music a disservice by dissecting it for the sole purpose of stapling the still-twitching parts to modern wank like a Frankenstein's monster you actually want to be burnt alive. Regardless of which way you shake it, Simulation Theory is a complete failure.
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