You can say one thing about Muse: they never fail to surprise.

On the Devon trio's seventh album, that means incursions into a cappella singing (Drones) and 1980s soft rock (Aftermath) – which is as disconcerting as it sounds.

At times, Drones sounds like Matt Bellamy and co are morphing into a paranoid version of Queen that babbles about the third World War and conspiracy theories, but occasionally their hip-swinging, funk-infused swagger and Bellamy's operatic vocals pay dividends, as on Psycho.

At their most potent, Muse seem like an unstoppable force, using a three-piece rock setup to truly push boundaries.

At their most self-indulgent, their pompous prog is teeth-gratingly tedious, as heard on the ridiculous 10-minute-long The Globalist.

With this collection, they get the benefit of the doubt – but only just.

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