Manic Street Preachers – The Ultra Vivid Lament

Perfect conditions for her new, 14th album. "The Ultra Vivid Lament" is the name of the follow-up to 2018's "Resistance Is Futile," with a total of ten new songs penned by vocalist James Dean Bradfield. The band recorded the record at their own "Door To The River" studio in Newport and at "Rockfield Studios" in Monmouth. Producer Dave Eringa, who has worked with the Manic Street Preachers on several occasions, was behind the controls. The album also features two special guest vocalists: Mark Lanegan on the song "Blank Diary Entry" and Julia Cumming from US rockers Sunflower Bean on the track "The Secret He Had Missed".

Manic Street Preachers previously described "The Ultra Vivid Lament" as both a reflection and a reaction, a record that looks isolated through a cluttered space fogged by often painful memories to focus on an open window that offers a shimmering vista of land that merges into sea and endless sky.

Nice view. And how this sounds, they already revealed in June with the melancholic-dreamy single: "Orwellian". They also provided a detailed explanation for the single: "The song is about the struggle for meaning, the erasure of context within debates, the prevailing sense of factional conflict driven by digital platforms leading to a perpetual state of culture war."

Like many of the other tracks on the record, Bradfield composed the song on piano this time. And you can hear that clearly. According to Manic Street Preachers, their new album sounds like if The Clash were playing Abba. There's no better way to describe it.