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Whereas the Manics’ most politically conscious tracks were once pointed, scathing anthems, the two here are bouncy, piano-lead, and oddly friendly. The album is littered with references to the confusion and complexity of our current sociopolitical landscape, explicitly evidenced by “Don’t Let The Night Divide Us” and lead single “Orwellian”. It’s easy to read The Ultra Vivid Lament similarly. In retrospect, Lifeblood – the Manics’ first post-9/11 album, felt like the band were crafting an album that was as cold and jaded as the world of that era. On The Ultra Vivid Lament, there are echoes of the cool modernism of 2014’s brilliant Futurology, a little of the lush melancholy of 1998’s This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours, and plenty of the icy new wave pop of 2004’s Lifeblood. Although Nicky Wire has claimed that the band make “either post-punk or glam albums”, their back catalogue is constantly shifting, flicking between moods and lurching back and forth through the band’s own history, making connections to older approaches, philosophies and emotions. To fully understand any new release by the Manic Street Preachers requires a somewhat holistic approach.
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The track encapsulates The Ultra Vivid Lament’s broader emotional tenor, which shares something with the confused, rich and jumbled headspace of a dream. Combining ethereal synths and Bradfield’s echoing vocals, it makes for a wonderfully dreamlike and deeply melancholic opening. “Snowing in Sapporo” sees Manic Street Preachers lyricist Nicky Wire (through the voice of frontman James Dean Bradfield) recalling a walk through snow-leaden Sapporo in 1993. A great record.The Ultra Vivid Lament starts in the past. Ultra Vivid Lament makes it clear that despite the passing years, their imagination is still very much at work, and showing no signs of running out of steam. This fourteenth volume of the band's adventures is presented here in a deluxe version, which also contains no fewer than thirteen demos(!), laying bare the whole creative process of the Manic Street Preachers. Take, for example, the little gem that is Diapause, or the marvellously-titled ballad Into The Waves of Love. Album DescriptionĪnd the album does have something of the seventies about it, underpinned by a darker romanticism, which can also be detected in the sometimes bitter lyrics on Ultra Vivid Lament. See More Your browser does not support the audio element. “I’m not going to pretend that we’re reinventing the wheel in terms of modernity, but it’s definitely framed within that era of time”, he says.Īnd the album does have something of the seventies about it, underpinned by a darker romanticism, which can also be detected in the sometimes bitter lyrics on Ultra Vivid Lament. Nicky Wire underlines this in interviews, explaining earnestly that the album is "framed within" Abba's Waterloo and Echo & The Bunnymen's Bring On The Dancing Horses. One also thinks of the bombast of Simple Minds or Roxy Music's sallies into disco. She lights a fire under the single The Secret He Had Missed, a great tribute to Abba's disco pop songs, with a frantic rhythm and a catchy, pounding piano. Another guest is the glamorous Julia Cumming from the Brooklyn-based band Sunflower Bean, who is also a model in her spare time and has been seen in ads for Diesel and H&M.
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On this album we find their inimitable mix of flamboyant pop mixed with rock, featuring distinguished guests such as the American Mark Lanegan of the Screaming Trees, also known for his performances with Queens Of The Stone Age. twenty-three years! That's quite a nice surprise for the trio that was formed in 1986. The Ultra Vivid Lament, the fourteenth Manic Street Preachers album, marks a turning point in the band's career by debuting at number one in the UK charts, something that hasn't happened for.
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