Amazon.co.uk Review
Testing times for the
Manic Street Preachers: their seventh studio album,
Lifeblood, comes hot on the heels of a commercial flop--2001's brave but unfocused
Know Your Enemy--and renewed rumours that the band themselves are in the twilight of their existence. One thing's for sure, this is the right record at the right time: inspired by the widescreen melancholy of post-punk acts New Order, early U2, and The Cure, this "elegiac pop" LP finds the Manics acting their age, shelving the slash'n'burn punk in favour of a sound that is simultaneously graceful, epic and for these dedicated controversialists, unusually low-key.
The album's lead-off single, the disco-lite "The Love Of Richard Nixon", is a meandering dud--but luckily it's book-ended by a couple of strong tracks: the string-laden "1985", which both sings the praises of The Smiths and quotes Nietzsche, and "Empty Souls" (with its "Collapsing like the Twin Towers/ Falling down like April showers," couplet one of the few tracks here that boasts that good ol' Manics trait of near-to-the-knuckle motor-mouthing). Quality elsewhere is variable there's a couple of tracks here so inoffensively beige we won't waste words but it's worth hanging around for "Cardiff Afterlife", a sweet closer decorated with harp and vibraphone. --Louis Pattison
CD Description
Welsh politicos' seventh studio album follows 2001's 'Know Your Enemy' and the following year's greatest hits collection 'Forever Delayed'. Arguably the most pop orientated album they have ever recorded, 'Lifeblood' marks a sharp divergence from their earlier work, featuring lush, slickly-produced tracks with few guitars in sight. Produced in part by longtime David Bowie collaborator Tony Visconti, it includes the single 'The Love Of Richard Nixon'.