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The first Manics album to be written on piano rather than guitar, LP #14 sees the trio at their poppiest. Sounding similar in spirit to 2007's Send Away The Tigers, it's dominated by harmonising and James Dean Bradfield singing at his richest. There are inventive touches, including a Yes-style prog breakdown at the end of the otherwise New Seekers mood of Into The Waves Of Love. Diapause starts out as a Goth piano ballad, veers into more familiar mid-paced anthemics, then suddenly turns into synthjazz. It could also be viewed as the first great politically centrist album. Anyone expecting the makers of The Holy Bible to take up cudgels in the culture war should have realised Nicky Wire is too thoughtful, with the only insurrectionary move left a plea for nuance, taking on Boris Johnson's "boys from Eton" in Quest For Ancient Colour and the far left's hectoring intransigence in Orwellian. It makes for a humane album, matched by the generally wistful air. Wire and Sean Moore's rhythm section have never been more fluid, exemplified by the gorgeous finale Afterending. That's a plea to join the Manics "in the abyss". In this sublime form, the apocalypse should kindly hold off for now.
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