Manic Street Preachers have returned with their triumphant new single, ‘Decline & Fall’. Check it out below.
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Having been teased throughout the week, the song comes on the eve of the 30th anniversary of the band’s seminal 1994 album ‘The Holy Bible’, and marks their first new material since 2021’s acclaimed chart-topping 14th album ‘The Ultra Vivid Lament’.
The single adopts some of the retro-futuristic ABBA-esque sounds of their previous record met with the arena euphoria of ‘Resistance Is Futile’ and ‘Everything Must Go’ – but driven forward by the Manics’ influences of The Skids, ‘Gran Turismo’-era The Cardigans and The War On Drugs.
“Musically with ‘Decline & Fall’ we tried to create forward motion – a song which harnesses the past to propel it into the future – the lyric is one of realisation and understanding – of celebrating the tiny miracles that still exist whilst accepting and embracing managed decline,” said the band of ‘Decline & Fall’.
The song was recorded at the band’s Door To The River studio in Newport and the legendary Rockfield Studios in Monmouth, and was produced by regular collaborators Dave Eringa and Loz Williams and mixed by Caesar Edmunds (Beach House, Suede, Wet Leg).
The band discussed their upcoming 15th album in an interview with Louder Sound in June, which they described at the time as “90 per cent done” and likely to come out in January or February 2025.
“It has a lot of energy, even though I don’t feel particularly energised,” said bassist and lyricist Nicky Wire. “One of the songs is like a mixture of The Cardigans and The Skids, who are two of our favourite bands, and another sounds like ‘Come Up And See Me’ [by Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel] played by Dinosaur Jr.”
Manic Street Preachers, 2024. Credit: Alex Lake
The Welsh icons and former NME Godlike Genius winners released their album ‘Know Your Enemy’ in 2022 and ‘Lifeblood’ earlier this year, while last year Nicky Wire surprise-released his second solo album ‘Intimism’.
Wire currently has an art exhibition, My Little Empire, running at the Narbeth Museum in Pembrokeshire until December, featuring 26 pieces that showcase his love of the Polaroid image.
The band are also set to celebrate the 30th anniversary of their 1994 album ‘The Holy Bible’ with a one-off screening of the concert film BePure-BeVigilant-Behave tomorrow (August 30).
Having recently completed a joint co-headline UK tour with Suede, the Manics have been confirmed to play at Rockin’ On Sonic festival in Japan in January, alongside Pulp, Weezer and Primal Scream.
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