Manic Street Preachers have shared their euphoric new single ‘People Ruin Paintings’.
The track, which follows previous singles ‘Decline & Fall‘ and the Nicky Wire-fronted ‘Hiding In Plain Sight’ is taken from their forthcoming new album ‘Critical Thinking’.
Much like the former, the new single is a rousing widescreen anthem which sees frontman James Dean Bradfield explore the “destruction of truth” as he sings: “People ruin paintings, faces for the view / People destroy the truth.” You can listen to it below.
Due for release on January 31, ‘Critical Thinking’ has been described as “a record of opposites colliding – of dialectics trying to find a path of resolution”.
“While the music has an effervescence and an elegiac uplift, most of the words deal with the cold analysis of the self, the exception being the three lyrics by James [Dean Bradfield, frontman] which look for and hopefully find answers in people, their memories, language and beliefs,” Wire recently told NME.
“The music is energised and at times euphoric. Recording could sometimes be sporadic and isolated, at other times we played live in a band setting, again the opposites making sense with each other. There are crises at the heart of these songs. They are microcosms of skepticism and suspicion, the drive to the internal seems inevitable – start with yourself, maybe the rest will follow.
“We started with a bit more urgency than usual. Without knowing it, we had five or six demos already… maybe it was that subconscious threat of time running out after COVID,” he told MOJO.
“There was no MO. Sometimes we played live together in a definite band environment, other times it was more isolated, where I just laid a guitar down to a click [track], or Nick [Wire] put a vocal down with a click, or I’d do a really rough acoustic version, and we’d build from those. So it was about two years of intense, scatterbrained work.”
He added: “Sometimes just to have your best songs is enough, just putting a record out and not trying to describe a big overarching concept, even though there is a thread there. We wanted to sing, play, be free, and for what Nick was writing lyrically to have a place to shine.
“Nick’s trying to analyse his position in the world and reconcile his antagonism towards modern-day politics or beliefs – his song ‘Critical Thinking’ talks about empathy and the well-being industry, whilst we revel in other people’s destruction. My three songs were optimistically looking for an answer in a more pragmatic way. I’ve got a song called ‘Being Baptised’, which is a postcard from the past about a fucking lovely day I spent with Allen Toussaint, basking in his wisdom and judgement and talent. So that’s the dichotomy they have.”
Discussing the album artwork, Wire also previously told NME: “I’ve always been a fan of David Hurn, he is a colossus of modern documentary photography.
“I bought a couple of his beautiful prints and to cut a long story short he ended up coming to the Manics Door to the River studio in Caerleon and delivering the prints by hand. We sat and talked all morning, the stories were mesmerising, the coffee was strong and the time flew by. David was 89 when I met him, his enthusiasm and will to pursue his work/art really resonated with me and pushed us onwards. This eventually led to the cover of the new Manics record – the photo seemed to express the same eternal uncertainty, doubt and desire that run through the record itself.”
Wire added: “It’s a massive thrill to have one of his photos on a Manics record, it’s elegiac, widescreen longing mirrors where we are as a band as we release our 15th studio album.”
Reflecting on their legacy, Wire also previously told NME: “When you’ve been together this long and know each other this much, it becomes much more about communication through instinct and discovering that natural way of making songs. We have talked ourselves through oblivion, the three of us. I can’t describe it any other way.”
The band are set to kick off a series of UK dates in April. You can purchase any remaining tickets here.
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