Dig up, stupid!

[Video]
[3.33]

Katie Gill: As someone who finds Muse’s normal output terminally boring… I kind of like this! Handclaps, strings, that wibbly electronic backing, a choir style chorus, sonically this is so unexpected. Easily the best part is when the guitars kick in at around the three minute mark and it builds up to an explosion of sound, just a BEAUTIFUL cacophony of noises that really shouldn’t work well together but they kind of do. Shame about the lyrics, though.
[6]

Jonathan Bradley: Muse’s debut single turns 18 this month; when the band made its 1999 debut, it did so as part of a new and ultimately bereft direction for British rock, characterized by a post-OK Computer impulse towards the heady, artistic, and sometimes proggy. “Dig Down,” however, with its stadium drums and gospel choir hearkens back to a more triumphant moment in UK adventures in hi-fi, suggesting the ’90s will-to-power of Primal Scream, or perhaps the thin Blairite festivity of D:Ream. Matt Bellamy is the most fitting and least pleasant part of this straining morale-booster: he has the charisma of a gormless weed whom The NME has insisted can be a star through virtue of his appearance on its cover and a whining gurgle of a lead vocal to match. The points are for the rippling low-end, because that’s a far preferable update on the sound than twibbly keyboards or prattle about knights who say Cydonia. 
[2]

Micha Cavaseno: You know, Radiohead fans will always try to tell you that Muse is the lesser version of their beloved band. But right, here, you have the perfect emblematic parallel between the two bands. Just the same way Yorke’s still out here banging out the Autechre glitches in 2017, muttering about the robots here’s Matt Bellamy sneering about Alex Jones over dubstep wobbles in 2017. Anyway I wonder who’d be Muse’s Paul Thomas Anderson? Chris Nolan no doubt; dude already works with one red-piller.
[4]

Ian Mathers: (God help me, I like that big farty sound, hopefully someone decent uses it at some point, but) shouldn’t these jagoffs be playing benefit shows for Alex Jones, or have they switched which conspiracy theories they believe in these days?
[3]

Tim de Reuse: The squelching bass attempts to be momentous in its constant, unceasing I-IV-V, but it only manages to become saturated and tedious with cheap inspirational tropes. Seemingly oblivious to the half-baked instrumental he’s working with, Bellamy tries to communicate the depth of his resolve in the face of adversity by appending a wet, grunting “UH” onto every overwritten line he croaks. It’s all pretty bad then, but the worst part is the self-important bombast that oozes confidently out of every element even as it all kinda falls apart.
[3]

Anaïs Escobar Mathers: The only thing worse than a new Muse single is Matt Bellamy’s lip service about how we can change the world if only we really tried. Despite the way the world is going these days, I am hopeful that people can work towards common goals and true progressive change; I’m not sure I’m into a poor man’s take on Queen with self congratulatory pat on the back lyrics that address everything and nothing at once.
[2]

Thomas Inskeep: When Queen went all synth-ridiculous on “Body Language,” they did so with Freddie Mercury’s self-aware flouncing and his absurd cooing of lyrics like “give me/your body” (not to mention his wail on “SEXY BODY!”). Muse, on the other hand, sound as if they’re soundtracking a fan-made shot-for-shot camcorder remake of Flash Gordon. And they clearly think they’re so fucking important. 
[2]

Claire Biddles: Remember when Muse were sexy? Matt Bellamy kind of does! If “Dig Down” kept up the sci-fi slow-jam atmospherics of its first 30-odd seconds I’d be on board, but then comes the do not obey blah face your demons against the odds blah blah blah find a way blah blah blah blah sexless nonsense that has unfortunately characterised Muse’s output since they sacrificed their carnal impulses to the devil in exchange for steady sales to 14 year old boys and the conspiracy theory website-moderating men that they become.
[3]

Cassy Gress: Muse over the years have meandered from “rock band that jacks Romantic-period chord progressions to nifty effect” to “rock band that inserts actual orchestras when they want to sound epic” to “rock band that wants to sound epic.” Add Queen-lite harmonies, lyrics about persevering and struggling against drones or chemtrails or insert-conspiracy-or-bugaboo-here, and you’ve pretty much got a paint-by-numbers Muse song. “Dig Down” is not as horrifically off the mark as, say, “Survival,” and I kind of like the wubbing bass riff. Plus that “unngh” in the middle of the first verse is hot. But it takes too long to get to the final chorus explosion after the guitar solo, and I swear it sounds like “DICK! DOWWWWN!!” “Dig Down” works better as a soundtrack for its music video than it does as a standalone song.
[5]

Alfred Soto: I’ll admit to skipping a minute to see if it stumbled out of its studious electrocrawl. Is Muse aiming for “In Every Dream Home a Heartache”? Eventually “Dig Down” segues into an embarrassed tub thumper of offensive tentativeness.
[2]

Iain Mew: Muse are well into the repetitive phase of their history, but have defied the saying; “Madness” was farce and this is just tragic.
[2]

Scott Mildenhall: No-one can accuse Muse of bandwagon-jumping, and “Dig Down” is such a doubling-down on their previous work that, beyond resembling the Look Around You theme, it sounds like they’ve squashed “Madness.” The weight must have been heavy — as a call for resistance it’s nowhere near as uplifting as “Resistance” itself, nor “Knights of Cydonia,” nor “Neutron Star Collision,” nor “Uprising.” The digging in question here sounds almost laborious; not really a dig for victory.
[6]