Album Review: Critical Thinking by Manic Street Preachers

They may no longer be generation terrorists, but on this evidence they can still deliver a witheringly bracing state of the nation address At the start of the 1990s, four young Welsh lads appeared with a love of situationist sloganeering and quotes almost designed to get them headlines in the music press. Manic Street Preachers were androgynous, promised to only ever release one album, and then split up. Guitarist and lyricist Richey Edwards carved ‘4 Real’ into his arm.

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While some bands have made a career resting on their laurels, Manic Street Preachers have prolonged theirs by continuing to push the envelope. Having emerged in 1990 with a glut of three-minute punk anthems amidst a wave of indie rock and dance music crossover bands like proverbial sore thumbs, the Manics' reluctance to conform or align themselves to any particular scene or genre has worked in their favor. Having built an intensely loyal and devoted band of followers over the years, it's to their credit that a new Manic Street Preachers record is greeted with the same levels of excitement and adulation as it would have been three decades ago.

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With machine-tooled festival sets and an increasing willingness to embrace aspects of their past that fans love but they find more problematic, Manic Street Preachers have settled into their latter phase with an assured confidence. Fifteen years on from "one last shot at mass communication," they know their time has passed and they now serve a devoted faithful. Postponed release dates and multi-format bundles betray the undimmed love of a chart-topper but, that aside, this is an album that looks inwards in more ways than one.

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There's a charming lack of cynicism to the Manic Street Preachers' new album, Critical Thinking. Despite concerning themselves explicitly with hyper-capitalism, managed decline, and political unrest, James Dean Bradfield, Nicky Wire, and Sean Moore can't help but turn out something that sounds, well, optimistic. But this is the charged, gimlet-eyed optimism of the soapbox speaker: things are bad but they can get better, so you'd better listen in.

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If to suggest that Manic Street Preachers suffered from the strength of their own caricature - angry young men with a message; a still since unrivalled ability to combine politics and pop for chart success - is an exaggeration, then at least the way that fifteenth album 'Critical Thinking' starts goes some way towards misdirecting the bulk of the trio's latest. On its opener and title track, Nicky Wire straddles a line between sarcasm and menace to list a series of platitudes atop a Franz Ferdinand-like strut, channelling a Black Mirror-esque indie sleaze. But, as painfully timely as Wire's questioning where the titular skill has gone is, 'Critical Thinking''s vibe isn't matched until endearingly wonky closer 'One Man Militia' kicks in, its earworm of a chorus offering a wide-eyed fist-pump moment alongside snippets of self-awareness ("Even our dreams are intellectual," its chorus begins).

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Over 30 years and 15 albums in and, thankfully, Manic Street Preachers have yet to call a truce with their furies. Critical Thinking lashes out against the ills of the modern world and asks vital questions about the purpose of art and their own relevance. If that sounds heavy, it's mostly set to some of the most uplifting music of their career, all shimmering, arpeggiated 80s indie, exultant choruses, and their take on the Big Music (Bunnymen, early Simple Minds, Waterboys) that set the teenage Manics' hearts racing. It begins, though, with the fantastically vitriolic red herring of its title track.

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