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The Welsh band's 14th album is a fine addition to their canon
Arty, provocative and tinged with tragedy following the February 1995 disappearance of Richey Edwards, the mythology around Manic Street Preachers was often more interesting than their actual music. That was especially true of their post-Edwards “imperial” phase, when they steamrolled the charts with self-worthy plodders such as A Design For Life (which could have been called “A Design for Gatecrashing Britpop).
But middle age has brought out a more interesting side in the Welsh trio and The Ultra Vivid Lament, their 14th album, is a solid addition to the canon. Its great innovation is to appropriate the Abba trick of marrying upbeat melodies and ennui-soaked lyrics. The theme of the record is that all things will pass and that each of us is on the road to decrepitude.
Yet that message is filtered through spring-heeled synth pop. Orwellian grafts student poetry – “I’ll walk you through the apocalypse/Where me and you could co-exist” – to a storming melody, so that it feels the band are grinning while blinking back tears.
Best of all is The Secret He Had Missed, a spiky duet between James Dean Bradfield and Julia Cumming of New York indie group Sunalaflower Bean. More than a return to form, it points to the start of a fascinating new chapter in the Manics’ story.
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