Muse: Drones review – an Orwellian breakup album

(Warners/Helium 3)Since Black Sabbath’s War Pigs and Iron Man, hard rock has enjoyed warily eyeing the interface between robotics and warfare, themes generally untouched by the more house-trained species of pop music. For their seventh album, Teignmouth trio Muse have grasped this paranoid sub-genre with both hands, riffing on a tendency already glimpsed on albums such as 2009’s The Resistance and 2003’s Absolution.Never a band to shy away from a prog-rock statement, Muse’s Drones is a c