Muse have released "Cryogen," the third single from their upcoming tenth studio album The Wow! Signal, and it finds Matthew Bellamy doing what he does best — wrapping grandiose emotional catastrophe in the kind of space-rock theatricality that's made the Teignmouth trio one of the most polarizing acts in modern rock.
The track, produced by the band alongside Dan Lancaster, is built around a frozen, dystopian conceit. Bellamy's "ice queen" — a figure who "turns blood into diamonds" — gets the full Muse treatment: soaring vocals, crushing dynamics, and lyrics that include the unimprovable line "this girl is nitrogen." It's a cold-blooded anthem in the most literal sense, and Bellamy delivers it with the kind of committed sincerity that either makes you a Muse believer or sends you running for the exits. There's no middle ground with this band, and "Cryogen" isn't interested in finding one.
The single follows "Unravelling" and "Be With You" in the pre-album rollout, and by this point, the picture of what The Wow! Signal will sound like is becoming clearer. The album's title is itself a cosmic reference point — named after the famous 72-second radio signal detected from the Sagittarius constellation in 1977 that left astronomers stunned and has never been explained. It's exactly the kind of extraterrestrial mystery that Muse has always been drawn to, and naming the record after it signals a return to the grand-scale cosmic themes that defined their most iconic era. Think Origin of Symmetry and Absolution rather than the synth-pop pivot of Simulation Theory or the conspiracy-rock of Will of the People.
"Cryogen" debuted live earlier this month during an intimate set at London's O2 Academy Brixton — a venue that feels almost comically small for a band that's headlined Wembley Stadium, but the choice to road-test new material in a 5,000-cap room speaks to a band that wanted to feel the songs connect before committing them to record. Reports from the Brixton show suggested "Cryogen" hit particularly hard in the live setting, its dynamics benefiting from the kind of volume that makes your chest cavity vibrate.
The Wow! Signal is due June 26, and the supporting tour infrastructure is already in place. Muse will hit North America in July and August before swinging through Europe in November 2026. The North American run includes a July 5 date in St. Louis, and if the album's three singles are any indication, these shows will lean heavily into the kind of operatic bombast that Muse has turned into a stadium-filling art form.
The question with every new Muse album is the same: can they balance their maximalist instincts with songs that actually stick? "Cryogen" suggests they're at least asking themselves the right questions. Whether The Wow! Signal provides satisfying answers won't be clear until June, but three singles deep, the trajectory feels more promising than anything since Drones.