Manic Street Preachers announce 2021 UK tour & new album 'The Ultra Vivid Lament'

Welsh music legends Manic Street Preachers have announced their 14th studio album ‘The Ultra Vivid Lament’ and a headline UK tour for later this year.

Released on Friday 3rd September 2021 via Columbia/Sony, ‘The Ultra Vivid Lament’ is the follow-up album to 2018’s ‘Resistance Is Futile’ and it’s billed as ‘both reflection and reaction; a record that gazes in isolation across a cluttered room, fogged by often painful memories, to focus on an open window framing a gleaming vista of land melting into sea and endless sky.’

As a taster for the record, the Blackwood trio have premiered the lyric video for lead single ‘Orwellian’, which already sounds like an instant Manics classic.

Manic Street Preachers said of the song: “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 Ultra Vivid Lament’.”

Watch Manic Street Preachers' ‘Orwellian’ right here:

‘’The Ultra Vivid Lament’ was was recorded over winter 2020/21 in Wales at Rockfield in Monmouth and the bands’ Door to the River studio in Newport with longtime collaborator Dave Eringa (The Who), before being mixed by David Wrench (Blossoms, Frank Ocean, Arlo Parks).

The record features guest vocalists Mark Lanegan on ‘Blank Diary Entry’ and Julia Cumming (Sunflower Bean) on ‘The Secret He Had Missed.’ Other song titles include ‘Snowing In Sapporo’, Diapause’ and ‘Happy Bored Alone.’

In support of the record, Manic Street Preachers will embark on a headline UK tour throughout September and October before playing a huge one-off show at London’s The SSE Arena, Wembley on Friday 3rd December 2021.

Tickets go on sale from Absolute Radio Tickets at 10am on Friday 21st May 2021. Support at all dates except London comes from The Anchoress.

See Manic Street Preachers at the following shows:

SEPTEMBER 2021

Newcastle O2 City Hall – Sun 26th

Edinburgh Usher Hall – Tue 28th

Dundee Caird Hall – Wed 29th

OCTOBER 2021

Stoke-On-Trent Victoria Hall – Fri 1st

Manchester O2 Apollo – Sat 2nd

York Barbican – Mon 4th

Glasgow Barrowland – Tue 5th

Leeds O2 Academy – Thu 7th

Portsmouth Guildhall – Fri 8th

Bournemouth O2 Academy – Sun 10th

Cambridge Corn Exchange – Mon 11th

Bath Forum – Wed 13th

Brighton Dome – Thu 14th

DECEMBER 2021

London The SSE Arena, Wembley – Fri 3rd

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