Muse Fans React To Be With You: “They Don’t Follow Genres, They Create Them”

Muse released their latest single ‘Be With You’ today March 19, and early reactions from listeners have been divided.

The band first began hinting at the track earlier this month. It is the second song to be revealed from their upcoming album ‘The WOW! Signal’ and follows the first single ‘Unravelling’, which arrived in June of last year.

The song opens with a dramatic church organ before shifting into electronic textures and eventually breaking into guitar driven rock. One listener on YouTube summed it up by saying, “Muse doesn’t need a genre, they are a genre.”

Other fans compared the sound to earlier material from the group. One commented, “It’s like ‘Something Human’ and ‘Invincible’ had a baby!” while another added, “God, it’s like listening to a mix of different songs all in one. I’m loving it.”

A fan posting on X formerly known as Twitter wrote: “The Best Band on the planet is back! What an intro and outro. I love your versatility and I can’t wait to hear the rest of the album. You changed my life in so many ways and I’ll always ‘Be With You’.”

On the r/Muse Reddit community though, the response was more critical. One user suggested the Devon trio “need to take more risks with their songwriting,” while another commented: “I don’t get their new obsession with lightly dipping the tip into a riff and then immediately pulling out in the recent songs.”

“I just kept waiting for the song to hit, to scratch the itch so to speak, and it never happened. Just not exciting or memorable,” another fan wrote. “I’ve been following Muse for nearly 20 years now and refuse to give up hope yet, but I won’t say the thought has crossed my mind.”

Another listener added, “This is so bad. Coming over ‘Unravelling’ I was so hoping for the same heavy vibe.”

Both ‘Be With You’ and ‘Unravelling’ are set to appear on the band’s next album, which follows their 2022 release ‘Will Of The People’. The new record is scheduled to arrive on June 26 through Warner. Pre order and pre save options are available here.

According to information shared in a press statement, the title ‘The WOW! Signal’ comes from one of the most intriguing space discoveries of the twentieth century. It refers to “a powerful 72 second radio burst detected in 1977 originating from the constellation Sagittarius with a bandwidth and intensity that suggested a possible extraterrestrial source”.

“The astronomer who discovered the anomaly famously circled the now iconic sequence ‘6EQUJ5’ and wrote ‘WOW!’ on the printout beside it, giving the signal its name and cementing its place in scientific and pop culture lore,” the statement explains.

The album is described as exploring “a mix of cosmic mystery, existential hope, and the exhilarating possibility of contact with something far greater than ourselves”.

Last year, bassist Chris Wolstenholme spoke about the band’s direction and confirmed they were already thinking about their next chapter. “I think we’re gonna start work on the next record fairly soon,” he said.

“When you finish touring an album, and when the band has been around a bit longer, the gaps between albums get a little bit bigger. I don’t think we can be banging out new albums every two years like we used to,” he continued. “But it gives you that opportunity to reset a little bit and think about what’s gonna happen going forward.”