Manic Street Preachers new album promises to be a different take on greatness

Manic Street Preachers are one of the more underrated bands of the 20th century, globally speaking. OK, to be real, Americans generally did not get the band's music. Maybe James Dean Bradfield, Nicky Wire, Sean Moore, and the late Richey Edwards were always a bit too Welsh. Maybe the subjects of the songs were too un-American.

After all, a song as beautiful as "If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next" should be admired everywhere, but Americans probably could not identify with references to the Spanish Civil War. If it didn't have much to do with the United States, the topic was likely eschewed. That's our fault and miss, not the Manics.

There is good news, though. The band is not done. In fact, they will be releasing their 15th studio album on January 31, 2025, and it will be called Critical Thinking. That is a fitting title for a band that always approached their music with a feel for a greater view. They never acted like intellectual elites. The band didn't need to. Their music was always more thought-of and better conceived than almost any other band you might have heard of.

First two singles from new Manic Street Preachers album implies fans should expect greatness

But what should fans expect from their new record? First, the Manics are pulling off a first for them. Bassist Nicky Wire will take lead vocals on a single, "Hiding in Plain Sight," the second release from the new album. Both the first single, "Decline and Fall," and "Hiding in Plain Sight," have a super glossy production, so don't expect a rehash of The Holy Bible.

The band's sound so far on the new record implies they learned a bit from the tour with Suede in 2024. "Hiding in Plain Sight" has the production value and use of instrumentation that would fit on Suede's 2013 album, Bloodsports. That is not meant as a negative.

According to what Nicky Wire told Louder, the new album is "a record of opposites colliding - of dialectics trying to find a path of resolution. While the music has an effervescence and an elegiac uplift, most of the words deal with the cold analysis of the self...The music is energized and, at times, euphoric...There are crises at the heart of these songs. They are microcosms of skepticism and suspicion, the drive to the internal seems inevitable - start with yourself, maybe the rest will follow."

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