More about: Manic Street Preachers

One of the many aspects of rock ‘n' roll that nobody will tell you about is the amount of records you will have to sign. “I’m working my way through three-and-a-half thousand signed CD covers” Nicky Wire admits on a brisk August afternoon; it’s taken fellow Manic Street Preacher, drummer Sean Moore, four days to complete his set of signatures—“it’s a long old haul” Wire laughs. 

“I’ll walk you through the apocalypse” promises ‘Orwellian’, the lead single to The Ultra Vivid Lament, the fourteenth studio album from Manic Street Preachers. In fact, the Manics have been walking us through the apocalypse for well over twent-five years, and continue to innovate and shine with every new release. The Ultra Vivid Lament is no different; a melancholic pop record taking cues from ABBA and Echo & the Bunnymen (Wire using ‘Waterloo’ and ‘Bring On the Dancing Horses’ as two keen reference points), and throwing glimpses at the world in its current state of play.

However, Wire is keen to stress something in particular. “It’s not a COVID album. There’s definite hints of it, but it does face an existential mirror of meaningless!” he says. ‘Orwellian’ and ‘The Secret He Had Missed’, the second single from the album, are “coming up to two years old” after all. After singer/guitarist James Dean Bradfield “learnt to play the piano and presented the demos sort of in piano version”, the songs emerged from his eagerness to seek out “a different way of writing”. 

That goal flourishes on The Ultra Vivid Lament; a blend of Lifeblood’s “iciness”, the forward-facing “high futurism” of Futurology, and the sanguine, reflective lyrics of Rewind the Film. Wire further elaborates: “We wanted to make something that really appealed to ourselves, rather than chasing our tails too much”. After nearly thirty years, “there comes a point where the tide overtakes you and you realise that creativity is the only refuge left”. He also points out that throughout the band's discography, they’ve always had that “sporadic and mad” need to move from one sound to the next. “We’re all 52, and there’s only so many angles left other than your words and music. And we’ve probably reached that point!” 

If that statement sounds like an admission of defeat, it is far from it. Wire credits their “longevity” to this very ethos the band have followed through their career. He adds: “We could make lesser versions of Everything Must Go every time if we wanted to, but there’s no point.”

The excitement of seeing a fresh new album from his band in record stores has not waned after so long. “I know this is a dying view” Wire self-deprecatingly contests, “but when I go into a record shop and I see a rack and we’re gonna be on our fourteenth original album, I still get a buzz out of that!”.

Looking back on 2018’s Resistance Is Futile and the feeling is the same. Wire describes it as a “pick and mix hybrid Manics record, with some brilliant moments”, but stresses that he “wasn’t at [his] most focused” when he made it. Understandably so: at the time of writing, Wire was going through a rough period within his personal life, suffering the loss of both of his parents.

Looking back on the rest of their discography, Wire confesses he loves the fact that “our fans are defined by eras”. “There are some people who, for them, it’s all the fabulous glam of Generation Terrorists, or the dark brooding Holy Bible, or the rebirth of Send Away the Tigers. Everyone has a different Manics phase, and that’s really refreshing!”

As a lyricist, Wire describes his words on The Ultra Vivid Lament as “yearning” and attached to a “grown-up melancholia that permeates the atmosphere of the record”. Upon listening to the album, those words are apt and true. Cuts like ‘Quest for Ancient Colour’ are gloriously profound in their self-reflective attires (“I had a very bad dream, the main actor in it was me” the song begins), whilst album opener ‘Still Snowing in Sapporo’ may be the album’s highlight; a six-minute rocker that begins ambiently but builds up beautifully: a lyrical ode to the band’s early days (“still breaking in my heart, the four of us against the world”).

“Those memories are so entrenched in my mind”, Wire says of the track, “whether it’s the Rimmel eyeliner or the hairspray that I was using or Richey [Edwards] was using. I can’t get rid of them. I don’t want to get rid of them either, because they are really beautiful memories.” He laughs as he admits: “I can’t remember sometimes if I’ve had a shower in the morning, but I can pull myself back to 1993 and the plane into Sapporo, and [I remember] it was quite scary but really exhilarating.” The track has a comforting nature, which Wire ascribes to giving “a little insight to the fans who can relate to our history”. 

The album isn’t all flashbacks and navel-gazing, however. The Ultra Vivid Lament sees the Manics at their most fiercely political since 2013’s 30 Year War. “Don’t let those boys from Eton suggest that we are beaten” Bradfield urges on ‘Don’t Let the Night Divide Us’, whilst album closer ‘Afterending’ tilts its gaze to a nation clapping for “a crumbling state”. Lead single ‘Orwellian’ meanwhile, takes its inspiration from the “destruction and the misuse of words” says Wire, and “the endless culture wars we find ourselves in”.

Upon being asked whether such songs demand any ambiguity or subtlety in this current climate, Wire laughs. “We were Cold War kids coming out of the Cold War and everything did seem, you know, good vs evil, black and white. It was much easier to have your targets!” He digresses: “With the enormity of what confronts you now, it’s really hard to get that into lyrics without sounding crap”.

Using the example of Paul Weller and The Jam’s iconic hit ‘Going Underground’, Wire highlights the difficulty of writing pure politics. “It was almost too much for him: the spokesman of a generation at such a young age” he says, comparing Manics' own recent work with 1998 number one hit ‘If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next’. "It was about a specific thing—the Spanish Civil War and socialism fighting fascism—but the lines are so blurred now and that constant misuse of words...it fills a lyric writer with a bit of fear, to be honest!” 

Littered throughout the Manics’ career are collaborations, as well as songs about historical figures. Resistance Is Futile killed two birds with one stone, with the Anchoress featuring on ‘Dylan and Caitlin’, an ode to Dylan Thomas. ‘The Secret He Had Missed’, with glorious ABBA-esque piano flourishes, is an account of the lives of Welsh painters and siblings Augustus and Gwen John, and features vocals from Sunflower Bean’s Julia Cumming. On the inspiration behind the track, Wire credits the relationship between him and his own brother, the poet Patrick Jones: “Even though we get on great and bonded through a love of words, in terms of personalities, believe it or not he is the mad fucker! And I’m the sensible one!”. This rings true in the depiction of the John siblings, with Augustus’ wild personality clashing with Gwen’s interior, reserved designs.

On working with Cumming, Wire describes himself as a “massive fanboy” of Sunflower Bean, and describes the art of collaboration for the band as “essential”, with Mark Lanegan featuring on ‘Blank Diary Entry’ too. “We like the idea of old school duets” he admits, and says it’s now become “the most exciting part” of making an album. “As a band, we've always been overwhelmed by it, [but] it adds so much to our enjoyment of the record”. 

Throughout the trials of the pandemic, Wire is all too knowledgeable on how the Manics have “had it easier than most people”. He further elaborates: “We’ve all got nice gardens, we’ve got a studio we could use intermittently and form our own bubble [in], so I’m not sitting here saying we had a hard time”. But reflecting on the silence and the bands’ sudden enforced hiatus from gigging, he adds: “it does make you think: 'what are we actually doing?'”

There is an up-side. Wire notes that "not since Send Away the Tigers have we rehearsed so much”. 2001’s ‘Let Robeson Sing’ has returned to the set-list, as well as a cover of the aforementioned Echo and the Bunnymen cut ‘Bring on the Dancing Horses’. Even a tour celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of their debut, Generation Terrorists, is teased as a possibility."[We] always come back to those [songs]", Wire notes of the band's rehearsals.

“At our age, physically, I’m worried about pulling a muscle, doing my back in jumping! It feels like a mountain to climb, and we’ve never gone this long without a gig.” But the healing power of live music is never far away from Wire’s mind: “As us three go on stage, something takes over us. That’s why we love playing live so much, because we actually become slightly different people. To still live the fantasy of being in a rock and roll band, it’s the only place you can, being on a stage!”  

It’s quite a confusing and bewildering time to be alive right now: certainly worthy of more than one Ultra Vivid Lament. “The near future has been and gone” Bradfield sings on the hopeful album closer ‘Afterending’, and Wire is keen to underline that hope too. “We grew up with boredom, we kind of embraced boredom, and we enjoy boredom. I love solitude, I love exploring my internal galaxy, but I have the space and financial backing to be like that, so no disrespect to people who are really up against it.”

The spaces inbetween seem to drive Wire creatively, and the exploration of those spaces have recurred throughout the Manics canon. "If you’ve been in a band this long, everything is about waiting. Waiting for mixes, soundchecks, everything. So I’ve had no problem facing boredom head on. My hope usually lies in my own internal galaxy. I like facing my own horror!” And as Wire heads back off into his galaxy, or to sign more cover sleeves, he leaves with the re-affirmed staying power of the Manics, with the promise of them walking us through the apocalypse for many more years to come. 

The Ultra Vivid Lament arrives 10 September via Sony.

More about: Manic Street Preachers