Sony Music UK Manic Street Preachers - Lifeblood

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

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