Into The Waves Of Love: A Review Of The Ultra Vivid Lament, The New Album From Manic Street Preachers
After dabbling in punk and metal tropes, and name-checking Public Enemy in early interviews, ultimately the Manic Street Preachers' most subversive decision was to embrace big indie-pop. A continuation of moments from 2018's Resistance is Futile, The Ultra Vivid Lament, the new record from the Welsh trio, is as confounding as it is exhilirating. Glossy, slick, smooth, and catchy as hell in spots, the release is, in some weird way, the boldest thing they've attempted.
Opener "Still Snowing in Sapporo", like with "1985" did on 2004's criminally-underrated Lifeblood, warns us that we're entering nostalgic territory. Which is understandable given the interviews given by Nicky Wire in the wake of the deaths of his mother and father. And while lead singles "Orwellian" and "The Secret He Had Missed" are robust and radio-friendly, things don't hit any kind of emotional crescendo until "Quest for Ancient Colour", a ballad as heart-on-the-sleeve as anything Chris Martin would ever attempt. It's not entirely successful on first listen, but after a few spins, the cut seems to serve as a peak of the first stretch of The Ultra Vivid Lament, with "Don't Let the Night Divide Us" following next with a marriage of the harsh confections of Know Your Enemy (2001) with the sleek surfaces of the album right before this one. At this halfway mark of The Ultra Vivid Lament, a listener might feel sort of surprised at how open this whole enterprise has become, the sentiments of past numbers like "Indian Summer" and "Postcards from a Young Man" now wrapped up in compositions that are even more mainstream than those written by the Manics for Kylie some decades ago.
The second half of The Ultra Vivid Lament feels a bit more familiar in a way, shades of Futurology (2014) and even Lifeblood creeping through. If the elegant "Diapause" is a cousin to "Cardiff Afterlife" in tone, the direct "Into The Waves of Love" is altogether its own beast. Part early R.E.M. in melody (think "Driver 8") and part This Mortal Coil (those Alison Limerick-ish vocals from presumably Julia Cumming near the coda), the cut has leapt out at me as the most perfect composition on this one, even if "Complicated Illusions" might have a more immediate hook. Elsewhere, Mark Lanegan elevates "Blank Diary Entry" beyond its Nick Cave-inspired roots, even as the cut feels like a holdover from Rewind the Film (2013), and one a tiny bit at odds with the more complex half of The Ultra Vivid Lament.
The dourness of that Lanegan turn is removed as the album ends. Because even though James may sing "sail into the abyss with me" in "Afterending", The Ultra Vivid Lament is a hopeful record, a wildly hopeful one. There's no abyss here, man, just a big, big heart. And I'm not enough of a cynical asshole to expect the Manics to make The Holy Bible (1994) over and over again. If they want to throw their arms around the world, what better time than now to do that? The Ultra Vivid Lament is, in that sense, the anti-lockdown record. Irony's dead, Abba's back (for real!), and the Manic Street Preachers are once again taking "one last shot at mass communication", as they said more than a decade ago. This time they may have succeeded, depending on your willingness to listen.
The Ultra Vivid Lament is out on Friday everywhere.
More details on the Manic Street Preachers via ManicStreetPreachers.com.
[Photos: Alex Lake]