Manic Street Preachers BLACKWOOD rockers Manic Street Preachers will be releasing their new album later this year.
The Ultra Vivid Lament is the band’s 14th studio album and will be released on September 3 through Columbia/Sony. They have also released a new single called
Orwellian, the first taste of the new album. In a statement relating to the single, the band said: “The track is about the battle to claim meaning, the erasing of context within debate, the overriding sense of factional conflict driven by digital platforms leading to a perpetual state of culture war. “As with many songs on the record, it was written on the piano by James Dean Bradfield. Musically, it echoes Abba, the majesty of Alan Rankine’s playing in the Associates and Talk Talk’s It’s My Life with a Lindsey Buckingham guitar solo. It felt like the perfect sonic and lyrical introduction to
The Associates
The Associates were a Scottish rock act, formed in Dundee in 1979 by singer Billy Mackenzie and guitarist Alan Rankine. The group first gained recognition after releasing an unauthorized cover of David Bowie s Boys Keep Swinging in 1979, which landed them a contract with Fiction Records. They followed with their debut album
The Affectionate Punch in 1980 and the singles collection
Fourth Drawer Down in 1981, both to critical praise.
They achieved commercial success in 1982 with the UK Top 10 album
Sulk and UK Top 20 singles Party Fears Two and Club Country , during which time they were associated with the New Pop movement. Rankine left the group that year, leaving Mackenzie to record under the Associates name until 1990. They briefly reunited in 1993. Mackenzie died in 1997.