Manic Street Preachers: The Ultra Vivid Lament, review: deftly hammering square pegs into round holes
“We live in Orwellian times,” declare the Manic Street Preachers on their 14th album, The Ultra Vivid Lament. Presumably, they are referring to the Big Brother surveillance totalitarianism of 1984 rather than, say, the Stalinist pigsty of Animal Farm. Either way, it’s hard to imagine what George Orwell would have made of having his satires of authoritarianism serving as inspiration for a cheery knees-up pop-rock anthem full of lusty melodic hooks, crashing pianos, flyaway guitar solos and a fantastically catchy chorus inviting listeners to link hands and take a lovely walk “through the apocalypse”.
It is a challenge for all vintage bands to compete with their legacy whilst continuing to try and make vital new music, and the Manic Street Preachers carry an extra burden of rock and roll tragedy. They came roaring out of Caerphilly in 1991 as leftist agit rockers determined to combine the punk protest spirit of the Clash with the heavy rock attack of Guns N’ Roses. Following the disappearance and presumed suicide of totemic lyricist Richie Edwards in 1995, the surviving trio got absorbed into Britpop as a kind of more earnest and politically idealistic Welsh Oasis.
Every album since then has either tried to break away from or recontextualise their loaded past. It is as if they are constantly measuring themselves against the live-fast-die-young nihilism of their late bandmate. Can you still keep the punk flag flying when you are no longer angry young outsiders but affluent veteran rock stars?
Bassist Nicky Wire assumed leading lyric duties following Edwards’s departure. He has (with typical bravado) likened their latest offering to “the Clash playing Abba”, a tacit acceptance of their shift from early rowdier influences. You can certainly see what he’s getting at on Don’t Let the Night Divide Us, which sounds as joyously rambunctious as the last dance at a family wedding topped off with a very familiar descending piano motif that suggests the Manics have finally met their Waterloo. However, I am not sure what Abba fans would make of the the cheeky refrain: “Don’t let those boys from Eton / Suggest that we are beaten.”
In their attempts to be both populist and polemical, the Manics often feel like they are trying to hammer square pegs into round holes. In guitarist-singer James Dean Bradfield and drummer and multi-instrumentalist Sean Moore, they boast two incredibly gifted musicians whose dense arrangements glitter with intricate interplay.
“Sail into the abyss with me,” the Manics propose on the soaring, singalong finale Afterending. In print, it doesn’t exactly sound like an appealing offer, yet it is so damn catchy you can imagine huge crowds linking arms and joining in as the Welsh firebrands lead us all into damnation. All together now: “Everywhere you look / Everywhere you turn / The future fights the past / The books begin to burn…”
Out now on Sony
ALSO OUT THIS WEEK
The Vaccines: Back in Love City (AWAL)
St Etienne: I’ve Been Trying to Tell You (Heavenly)
The Stranglers: Dark Matters (Coursegood)
Kacey Musgrove: Star-Crossed (Interscope)
