Muse Previews 8th Album With Politically Charged Single ‘Thought Contagion’

Muse releases a new song called "Thought Contagion," which will be included in its still-untitled album coming by fall.

The track premiered on BBC Radio 1 this week and an accompanying video directed by Lance Drake went up on YouTube on Thursday, Feb. 15. The British band told Annie Mac that the music video, which has a very 80s feel, is actually the sequel to last year's "Dig Down."

Vampires

The new video follows a young man who, while playing an arcade game, meets a woman that turns out to be a vampire. While he is dancing on the streets, the woman reveals her claws and sharp teeth before she bites him on the neck.

Shortly after, a black truck with men in full gear arrives on the scene and dance with the vampires à la Michael Jackson in the music video for "Thriller."

Before the young man gets killed, the video pauses and the words "Game Over" appear on the screen. The character, it turns out, is from an arcade game called "Thought Contagion." A red car pulls up beside the arcade machine and Matt Bellamy steps out.

"Thought Contagion" is the second single from Muse's upcoming LP, the follow-up to 2015's Drones. The band revealed that the track is inspired by Richard Dawkins and the concept of memes, which, from the book The Selfish Gene, means an idea, style, or behavior that spreads from one person to another.

Muse's New Album

In an interview with the Rolling Stone, Bellamy, the vocalist of Muse, previewed what fans can expect from their next album.

"The album will be a very mixed bag," he shared. "The songs are going to be quite different in spots and we're also interested in doing some genre-blending and era-blending."

He also stated that the band is halfway through the new album and expects to release it later this year or by early next year. While he cannot give an exact release date, he promised not to torture fans who have been waiting for the rock band's new music for almost two years now by releasing two more singles in the coming months.

Muse does not typically release a single ahead of its new album, but this year it seems that the band will be trying out some things new.

"For us, it's really refreshing to just work on one song at a time and take each song to completion," Bellamy added. "We're doing the writing, recording and mixing process and even the video on this occasion before moving onto the next song. It's nice for us to not be multitasking twelve songs at once and always thinking about the whole."

Muse is set to appear in several music festivals in the coming months. They will perform at Pa'l Norte in Mexico in April, Carolina Rebellion in North Carolina, BottleRock in California in May, Bonnaroo in Tennessee, and Rock in Rio in Portugal in June.

Tags

Muse, Drones