Manic Street Preachers – Resistance Is Futile (2018)

Another day, another Manics' album, this time their 2018 release, bought as a job lot in Falmouth last month.

And initial impressions are that it certainly has the Manics' sound, and that while there's nothing awful, there's nothing outstanding either. But let's take a deeper dive.

It opens with a couple of rock bangers, People Give In and International Blue, the former stronger, but to me the strings intrude rather than enhance. Distant Colours and Vivian, share a similar pattern of reflective verse and upbeat catch chorus.

Dylan & Caitlin has a 1970s soul-style string intro and accompaniment, and Bradfield shares vocals with fellow Welsh singer The Anchoress, but it's not the strongest song, neither is Liverpool Revisited, despite having a sentiment I can get 100% behind.

But Sequels Of Forgotten Wars has a catchy guitar riff which rocks along before the plodding Hold Me Like A Heaven, and on previous listenings I hadn't even noticed the dull In Eternity.

However, things get brighter with the much faster paced Broken Algorithms, possibly my highpoint of the album, before A Song For The Sadness, a solid Manics sounding song and album closer, the slower, more mysterious and uninspiringThe Left Behind.

It's been said that the Manics repeatedly say "the next album will be more ...., or we want to return to...." then produce something stylistically exactly what you'd expect. And I can't help feeling they've done that again. I like the band, I'm on the same page as them politically and emotionally, it's just the music doesn't quite move me enough.

Link to album tracks

3* - a solid Manics' album, with the expected mix of rock, soul, angst and politics