One day, perhaps, I'll face facts and finally let go of my hopes for another Holy Bible. But not today. The Manic Street Preachers' new album The Ultra Vivid Lament certainly isn't it, whether lyrically or musically - though it does wear its self-consciously MOR stylings reasonably well.
Two things that didn't make it into my Buzz review:
1. There's a rich irony in the band who put out an album called This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours releasing a record that complains about the current climate of media disinformation and fake news.
2. The ABBA-influenced 'The Secret He Had Missed' - about Welsh brother and sister artists Augustus and Gwen John, and thus a parallel to Resistance Is Futile's 'Dylan & Caitlin' - is as good a duet as the Mark Lanegan collaboration 'Blank Diary Entry' is bad. Much as I love Lanegan, the concept looked bad on paper and proves even worse in reality. "No way out of this unholy mess"? Thankfully, there is: the end of the song.
On a related note, in his Nine Songs feature for The Line Of Best Fit, Nicky Wire pays tribute to the talent of three of the band's recent collaborators - Cate Le Bon, The Anchoress and Julia Cumming of Sunflower Bean - as well as waxing lyrical about tracks by Roxy Music, The Doors, The Go-Betweens, Joan Armatrading, Purple Mountains and Alex Turner.
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