Drones (Muse album)

On their previous albums The Resistance (2009) and The 2nd Law (2012), Muse incorporated orchestral and electronic music. In December 2013, they released the live album and video Live at Rome Olympic Stadium; songwriter Matt Bellamy said the band wanted the release "to capture some of the extremes of what we've been doing since we want to go in a different direction in the future." Muse began writing their seventh album soon after the Rome concert. Bellamy stated that the album "should be something that really does strip away the additional things that we've experimented with on the last two albums... I kind of feel like it will be nice to reconnect and remind ourselves of just the basics of who we are." ==Recording==

In October 2014, Muse entered the Warehouse Studio in Vancouver. After having self-produced their previous two albums, Muse worked with producer Robert John "Mutt" Lange to spend less time mixing and reviewing takes and focus on performance. Muse re-entered the studio in November 2014. On 1 April 2015, drummer Dominic Howard and mixer Rich Costey indicated on their Instagram accounts that they had finished mixing the album. The result was a simpler, more consistent rock sound with less elaborate production and genre experimentation. ==Composition==

Drones has been described as featuring alternative rock, hard rock, progressive rock, Answering fan questions on Twitter in September 2014, Bellamy said the album's themes include deep ecology, the empathy gap, and World War III. In March 2015, he said: In an interview in the same month, Bellamy described Drones as "a modern metaphor for what it is to lose empathy ... through modern technology, and obviously through drone warfare in particular, it's possible to actually do quite horrific things by remote control, at a great distance, without actually feeling any of the consequences, or even feeling responsible in some way." ==Promotion and release==

On 26 January 2015, Muse revealed the album title in an Instagram video featuring a mixing desk with audio samples and a screen stating "Artist – Muse, Album – Drones." They also began using the hashtag "#MuseDrones" on Twitter and Instagram. On 6 February, American artist Matt Mahurin announced he had created artwork for the album. On 8 March, the band shared a snippet of the new song "Psycho" and mentioned "mixing with a very tight deadline". On 12 March, Muse released a lyric video for "Psycho" on their YouTube channel, and made the song available for download with the album pre-order. Critics have described "Psycho" as a hard rock and glam rock song with elements of nu metal. On 23 March, "Dead Inside" was released as the album's lead single with a lyric video on Muse's YouTube channel. On 18 May, Muse released a lyric video for "Mercy" and released the song on Spotify. On 29 May, a lyric video for "Reapers" was released on YouTube, followed by "The Handler" on 2 June and "[JFK]" with "Defector" on 3 June. In an album review for The Observer, Kitty Empire commented that the pacy song "Reapers" "exposes the overlap between the unfeeling destruction of drone warfare and the unfeeling destruction wrought by people tearing each other apart," referring to Muse frontman Matt Bellamy's break-up from fiancée Kate Hudson. She also compared Bellamy to Yngwie Malmsteen, noting that the song contains "meaty riffs." Drones was released on 5 June 2015 in Europe and 8 June in the United Kingdom The fourth single "Aftermath" was released on 11 March 2016; further, on 16 April, the final single "Reapers" was released as a 7" single for Record Store Day. ==Tour==

From 15 to 24 March 2015, the band played the Psycho Tour, six concerts in small venues in the UK. The dynamics of this tour were different from what Muse had used in the past few tours, where they relied heavily on theatrical stage-craft and production, this tour took the band into smaller venues around the UK and the United States, the stage design was only a simple lighting rig and, for all but one concert, a backdrop displaying the cover art of their upcoming album. The band had not played in many of the venues since the Origin of Symmetry tour which took place from 2001 to 2002. The band was supported by Marmozets on the tour. Part of the tour also took place outside the UK in the United States. During the first leg of the tour, the band had their debut performance at Download Festival, which they also headlined. The new tour stage set up featured 11 LED pillars which could be manually pushed back and forth by members of the crew to accommodate the show. Bellamy compared this set up to The Resistance tour on his Instagram. An updated version of this set was used for the remaining dates in 2017, complete with new lighting rigs and lasers. ==Reception==

At Metacritic, which assigns a rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, Drones has an average score of 63 based on 25 reviews. Kerrang! gave Drones a perfect score, calling it "a claustrophobic classic that sharpens the focus of what is possible in the name of high-minded rock." Ian Cohen of Pitchfork found that Drones lacked subtlety and criticised its lyrics, writing, "Whatever pleasure can be generated from Bellamy's admirable melodic sense and overblown hooks is negated by Muse's insistence that they're profound rather than fun." Rolling Stone named it the 38th best album of 2015, calling it a "searing commentary on our era's vague dread, computer-driven death from above and Orwellian political climate ... It was the year's most convincing howl from the abyss." The Daily Telegraph wrote that "It's more than a little Spinal Tap, but if I was a teenage boy this is exactly the kind of thrilling madness that might turn me on to a moribund genre." The Evening Standard gave it four out of five and wrote: "Prog phobics might dismiss it as latter-day Pink Floyd with a dash of Noam Chomsky. But Bellamy's maturing songwriting has become more accessible, less prone to bluster. Drones is the fearsome sound of Muse at their monumental best." ==Commercial performance==

On the UK Albums Chart, Drones debuted at number one with sales of 72,863 copies, the third-highest opening of 2015 up to that point. It was Muse's fifth consecutive number-one album in the UK. It remained at number one in the second week, selling 24,445 copies (996 from streaming), bringing total sales to 97,308. It sold one million copies worldwide in 2015 and was the 19th best-selling album of the year. By 2016, it had sold approximately 170,000 copies in UK, 230,000 copies in the US, and 192,000 copies in France. Drones debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 in the week ending 14 June, earning 84,200 album-equivalent units in its first week (including 79,400 copies on traditional sales, 26,000 on single sales and 3.3 million on single streams), surpassing estimations. It replaced Florence and the Machine's How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful at the top, marking the first time that two British artists had debuted consecutively at number one in the US since 1956. Its traditional sales took Drones to number one of the Top Album Sales chart. ==Track listing==

Notes • "The Globalist" contains music based on "Nimrod" from the Enigma Variations, composed by Edward Elgar. • "Drones" contains music based on the "Benedictus" from Missa Papae Marcelli, composed by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina. ==Personnel==

Personnel taken from album liner notes, • Matt Bellamy – lead and backing vocals, guitars, piano, synthesisers, vocoder, string arrangements, production • Chris Wolstenholme – bass, backing vocals, production • Dominic Howard – drums, production Technical personnel • Robert John "Mutt" Lange – production; additional backing vocals ("Aftermath") • Rich Costey – additional production, mixing • Tommaso Colliva – additional production, engineering • Adam Greenholtz – additional engineering • Eric Mosher – engineering assistance • Giuseppe Salvadori – engineering assistance • Jacopo Dorici – engineering assistance • John Prestage – engineering assistance • Tom Bailey – engineering assistance • Marlo Borgatta – mixing assistance • Giovanni Versari – mastering • Bob Ludwig – mastering ("Dead Inside") • Matt Colton – mastering (vinyl half speed) • Olle "Sven" Romo – additional programming • Durand Trench – dialogue recording ("[Drill Sergeant]" and "Psycho") • Audrey Riley – string arrangements, conductor • Matt Mahurin – art direction, illustration, package design Additional musicians and performers • Will Leon Thompson – dialogue (Drill Sergeant) ("[Drill Sergeant]" and "Psycho") • Michael Shiloah – dialogue (Recruit) ("[Drill Sergeant]" and "Psycho") • John F. Kennedy – recorded dialogue of April 1961 Secret Societies speech ("[JFK]") • Alessandro Cortini – modular synthesisers • Edoardo De Angelis – concertmaster, violin • Sarah Cross – violin • Freiherr von Dellingshausen – violin • Anna Minella – violin • Elia Mariani – violin • Gian Guerra – violin • Gian Lodigiani – violin • Gianmaria Bellisario – violin • Marco Corsini – violin • Michelle Torresetti – violin • Tommaso Belli – violin • Valerio D'Ercole – violin • Maria Lucchi – viola • Serena Palozzi – viola • Valentina Emilio Eria – viola • Andrea Scacchi – cello • Eliana Gintoli – cello • Francesco Sacco – cello • Martina Rudic – cello • Linati Omar – contrabass • Massimo Clavenna – contrabass ==Charts==

Weekly charts Year-end charts ==Certifications==