Recording of the album took place in studios between London and Los Angeles County, beginning in October 2011 and ending in August 2012.

The 2nd Law was Muse's second album to be solely self-produced, following The Resistance (2009), and features a plethora of additional musicians that performed brass, strings, and choir vocals.

Musically, the band chose to experiment significantly and create a sound that was distinct from their previous records.

[2] Muse bassist Chris Wolstenholme had stated in an interview with BBC Radio 1 that they had aimed to begin recording The 2nd Law in either September or October 2011.

[8] In an interview in the April 2012 issue of NME, Bellamy said that the band were set to include elements of electronic music, with influences coming from acts such as French house duo Justice and UK dance-punk group Does It Offend You, Yeah?.

[9] The 2nd Law has been described by The Arts Desk as a concept album with main themes of "chaos, control, societal collapse and totalitarianism".

[17] "Madness", according to NME, features influences which draw from Queen's "I Want to Break Free" and David Bowie's Scary Monsters album.

[19] "Panic Station", the third track, has been noted as a funk rock song[20][21][22] and features collaborations from people who had worked on Stevie Wonder's "Superstition".

[19] It also includes explicit lyrics, making The 2nd Law Muse's first album to feature the Parental Advisory label.

[12] Bellamy stated that dubstep producer Skrillex was an influence when writing one of the final two tracks on the album – "The 2nd Law: Unsustainable".

As more fans joined the online project, the album art was built, representing the network of the neurons within the brain.

[29] The album was released as a digital download, CD, CD+DVD (with The Making of The 2nd Law and bonus feature),[30] and vinyl.

A deluxe edition box set of The 2nd Law included a CD, DVD, double vinyl and three posters.

[33][34] "Survival" was released as the album's first single on 27 June 2012 and premiered on BBC Radio 1's Zane Lowe show, along with the song's counterpart intro, "Prelude".

[57] "Panic Station" was released as the fifth single on 31 May 2013,[58] accompanied by a music video shot during the Japanese dates of The 2nd Law Tour.

[60] The band had previously performed this track, as well as "Madness", on the 6 October 2012 episode of Saturday Night Live.

The leg included dates in France, Italy, Ireland, Spain, Finland and the United Kingdom as well as other countries.

[66] BBC music critic Ian Winwood also gave the album a positive review, highlighting "Supremacy", "Liquid State" and "The 2nd Law: Isolated System", saying that Muse "present themselves in any guise they please".

[69] The Observer's Kitty Empire also alluded to Muse's bombastic tendencies, saying "Bellamy is not blind to the contradictions of his band's attempts continually to ramp the ludicrousness up to 11; endless growth is, of course, unsustainable.

"[76] AllMusic rated the album three out of five stars, noting "their excursions into dubstep and dance music on tracks like "Madness" and "Follow Me" feel more like remixes than original songs.

[77] The album listed at number 46 on Rolling Stone's list of the top 50 albums of 2012, saying "In an era of diminished expectations, Muse make stadium-crushing songs that mix the legacies of Queen, King Crimson, Led Zeppelin and Radiohead while making almost every other current band seem tiny.

Notes References Touring members: Morgan Nicholls (2004, 2006–2022), Daniel Newell (2006–2008), Alessandro Cortini (2009), Dan Lancaster (2022–present)