Muse announce new album Drones release date and tour dates

Muse have announced details of their new album, as well as a series of UK live dates.

Titled ‘Drones’, the 12-track LP will be released on June 8. It was co-produced by Robert John “Mutt” Lange along with the band.

Frontman Matt Bellamy says of the album: “To me, ‘Drones’ are metaphorical psychopaths which enable psychopathic behaviour with no recourse. The world is run by Drones utilizing Drones to turn us all into Drones. This album explores the journey of a human, from their abandonment and loss of hope, to their indoctrination by the system to be a human drone, to their eventual defection from their oppressors.”

The band will release a new track called ‘Psycho’ tomorrow (March 12), premiering on Youtube at 6pm GMT. It’ll be followed by the album’s first single, ‘Dead Inside’, due on March 23.

See the album’s tracklisting and artwork beneath:

‘Dead Inside’
‘[Drill Sergeant]’
‘Psycho’
‘Mercy’
‘Reapers’
‘The Handler’
‘[JFK]’
‘Defector’
‘Revolt’
‘Aftermath’
‘The Globalist’
‘Drones’

Muse have also announced a series of live dates for later this month. Matt Bellamy and co will play gigs in Belfast, Glasgow, Newport, Exeter, Manchester and Brighton.

Tickets are on sale from 9.30am on Thursday (March 12). See the full dates beneath:

Belfast Ulster Hall (March 15)
Glasgow Barrowlands (16)
Newport Centre (19)
Exeter Great Hall (20)
Manchester Academy (22)
Brighton Dome (23)

Earlier this week Muse teased the release of their new track ‘Psycho’ by releasing a short in the studio clip. The band posted the teaser clip to Instagram alongside the caption “Mixing #psycho to a VERY tight deadline #MuseDrones”.

Matt Bellamy recently revealed that the group’s new single is “too offensive for radio” during a brief question and answer session with fans on Twitter. A fan asked the frontman whether the rumours about Muse’s forthcoming single being aired on radio are true, to which he responded: “Too offensive for radio…”.

The band have also shared clips featuring voice recordings of the band talking and experimenting in the studio over still images, which were all accompanied by the hashtag #musedrones.

Speaking about their plans for the new album, Bellamy said previously: “I have this strong feeling that the next album should be something that really does strip away the additional things that we’ve experimented with on the last two albums, which is electronics, symphonics and orchestral work and all that kind of stuff.”

More recently, Bellamy hinted at some of the themes and sounds set to appear on the album, which include “deep ecology, the empathy gap and world war 3”.