MANIC STREET PREACHERS Best Album Poll

I was really enjoying Broken Algorithms as thinking it gave off some genuine Generation Terrorists vibez, but then I realised it basically steals from the melody of Spectators Of Suicide. Still, one of the better ones

I hesitate to say Nicky Wire is the weak link in the band as his efforts as a music writer are increasingly impressive (bet it was his idea to release demo CDs with every deluxe edition) but his lyrics have largely been utter mince for 20 years, really wish he could rediscover some self-awareness

I'm not sure what the press photos for this are meant to communicate.

What a miserable bastard The Wire has turned out to be

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/apr/12/manic-street-preachers-jobs-meaning-jeremy-corbyn-doesnt-understand-that-resistance-is-useless

what music writing has he been up to of late?

It's another one of those Send Away The Tigers / Postcards For A Young Man cheesy 'pop'-reboot albums but far more likeable than either of those.

Well, I like Send Away the Tigers and even have time for a couple of tracks on Postcards... so I'll probably like this. The older I get, the more I realise that the Manics lyrics were always a bit pony, even when Richey was in the band (a couple of exceptions on their third album aside) ... I'm more interested in JDB's guitar playing and inimitable voice.

Listening to Resistance Is Futile for the fifth time at the moment. I'm really loving it! It's classic energetic Manics. I'd agree that the overall sound approaches that of Send Away The Tigers/Postcards For A Young Man but also with a good deal of Everything Must Go and a nice occasional dose of Generation Terrorists/Richey-era.

SATT and Postcards have never been my biggest favourites - I certainly like them but was never overwhelmed (despite the inclusion of a duet with my fave singer Ian McCulloch on the latter).
I think the new one impresses me more than those two albums already.
I'm not -as- blown away as I was, and still am, with Futurology - but I'm pretty sure that this one will end up high in my Manics albums ranking.

They were strangely fascinating on "Sunday Brunch".

lmao i missed that this came out last month

i only just started but "I'd agree that the overall sound approaches that of Send Away The Tigers/Postcards For A Young Man but also with a good deal of Everything Must Go and a nice occasional dose of Generation Terrorists/Richey-era" is promising, i'd be really into a more balanced version of postcards

I tried with it a few times but I can only seem to get into the singles and the opener, but I'll keep at it intermittently

so far... i'm extremely unsure about it lol

I still haven't heard it yet!

i can never trust my first impressions of records when i'm listening to them at work, but something about it isn't clicking even though it's obv packed with hooks

i like the anchoress duet a lot though

"hold me like a heaven" is pretty awesome too, i don't think they've ever written a ballad like it

my favorite song atm though is "sequels of forgotten wars," which uncoincidentally is the song that sounds like it belongs on futurology

oh wait, on third listen: this is actually all pretty great, it's def a more balanced postcards but it also makes me think of what lifeblood would sound like if it were more aggressive, lotta textural synths

One month in and I'm still listening to 7 out of 12 tracks (only 1 on in the 1st half), which is unheard of for recent Manics albums/me. Second half of the album is just fantastic. Of course, none of of these songs are in the live set.

Hmm. I'm not taken with the new one on first listen - I'm hoping it'll improve.

I am mightily impressed. After lots of listens over the last month, I'm pretty sure my Manics top 5 albums is now:
1. Futurology
2. Gold Against The Soul
3. Everything Must Go
4. Journal For Plague Lovers
5. Resistance Is Futile

It sounded far better on third listen, and I agree that the back half is stronger. Ultimately, though, I feel roughly the same about this album as I do about Postcards and would rank it the same at the moment. It may grow further - I hope so.

First half save for International Blue is very Postcards 2. That earlier album is not exactly my least favourite (Tigers has lower lows) but it just feels so watered down and forgettable. I'm taken with the better songs on the new album due to getting some genuine pre-TIMTTMY feelings from something like In Eternity.

so they covered In Between Days when i briefly caught them at a festival last week, and it was....pretty great. still always weird to see a 6 person band up there nowadays though...

i also realised that it had been 20 TWENTY YEARS since the first ever gig I went to, which was one of the first shows of the This Is My Truth tour in Bournemouth with Catatonia.

TWENTY YEARS.

Yeah, I saw them on that tour too! I seriously thought this band were done circa the Greatest Hits collection and Lifeblood, as much as I love that record. That they rebounded back so strongly is amazing to me - the last 11-12 years of their career have been strong, IMO.

the new remaster of TIMTTMY replaces "Nobody Loved You" with "Prologue to History," and while I guess I should be offended by the revisionism, it's an undeniable upgrade, even if I'd also have swapped in "Black Holes for the Young" where "You're Tender and You're Tired" sits.

anyway Brad maintains the ability to anticipate how I hear things a few months in advance cause RIF now sounds like another strong album when I was sure it represented a step down. so I remain thinking their consistency is sort of ridiculous at this point.

oh, and for anyone out there still looking for hidden gems, the recent b-side "Mirror Gaze" should have been on the album proper, and not only because of its great opening lyric "I've made some sense of emptiness / I've learned to love me less and less" and its clear debt to "Blinded by the Light". (the Wire-sung "Concrete Fields" is surprisingly good too)

for some reason I keep forgetting Rewind the Film exists and then it knocks me out every year when the weather starts to cool

also "the endless parade of old Etonian scum line the front benches, so what is to be done?" is extra satisfying at the moment

https://i.imgur.com/CO4c4nE.jpg

I know it has...some detractors on here...but every year I like TIMTTMY more. it's their Up - overlong and eternally grey. which i love

nah, it's mostly crap.

I also quite like it. It's probably two songs too long but the sustained sullen mood it hits makes it stand out among the four Manics albums I've heard

been really digging the late records lately...mostly pretty sad/weary songs by aging dudes who know/sense that things are pretty unlikely to change drastically for the better in their lifetimes. I made a lil playlist of the best post-JFPL stuff for the curious

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4NZ4Po28IbM49eefsOIJAx?si=663f94e2bbf34c0e

Oh that's handy, i haven't heard the last one at all. Futurology was remarkable for a band so long in the tooth, can't think of any bands from that era who have pulled something that good off in the last ten years, i was properly amazed.

of the post-JFPL albums I'd go

Rewind the Film
Postcards From a Young Man
Futurology
Resistance is Futile

a couple decent b-sides in this period as well. they should pester underworld to produce their next one.

I am surprised Gold Against The Soul did as well as it did because it is my favorite Manics album and I thought my vast minority was more vast than that.