Manic Street Preachers - The Utra Vivid Lament review: ABBA-ish album could do with sharper teeth

If you can’t wait until that new ABBA album in November, here’s an unlikely aperitif. The sound of the shiny Swedes is all over the Manic Street Preachers’ 14th album, their first to be written mainly on the piano. That means grand, energetic chords straight out of Waterloo on The Secret He Had Missed, a euphoric duet with Julia Cumming of Sunflower Bean. On Orwellian, despite the dystopian subject matter – “I’ll walk you through the apocalypse,” sings James Dean Bradfield – the bright, ringing piano notes and singalong chorus suggest that everything is just peachy.

It’s no small achievement to manage a few surprises this far into a career, which has now lasted so long that recently the band have been combining writing new music with marking the 20th anniversaries of their landmark early albums. Blank Diary Entry sees gruff guest singer Mark Lanegan making Bradfield’s muscular voice sound unusually meek. The slow and stately Diapause finds room for a liquid, shimmering keyboard solo as it closes.

On Don’t Let the Night Divide Us, it’s ABBA again, with a huge, sunshiney chorus that even elbows out Nicky Wire’s usual lyrical bleakness. “Don’t let those boys from Eton suggest that we are beaten,” he has Bradfield urging. “A land now so infected can be free and equal.”

Long term fans may wish that these songs had sharper teeth. Bradfield’s big voice suits an electric guitar after all. But considered as a shock Eurovision entry, this is a fun diversion.

(Columbia)

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