Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

We are living in a time where the expression of grief is either firmly encouraged or damned as being self-interested, almost self-seeking, and there seems to be no middle ground between those who understand the empathy required to show someone you care enough to allow them the time and space needed to be able to go beyond the initial stages of hurt, and those who will do anything to ridicule and inflict further embarrassment on those willing to place their heart, not only on their sleeve, but in the glare of the intense judgement available of those with the loudest voices.

Intensity is an attribute that the listener will always find to describe the work, the collected body of music, that the Manic Street Preachers have supplied by the boat load since they first set their sights on challenging the thoughts and ideas of a society that has, despite their finest efforts, become so focused on losing its ability to show compassion, that it cannot consider another way to show the lament we all should be vocally transmitting, the sorry, the apology, we all desperately need to say to those that follow us in life’s eternal mystery.

The Ultra Vivid Lament may not capture the spirit of the last couple of albums sonically, but it does offer a chance for the listener to revel in a sound of physical modern sadness wrapped up in the sacred divinity that is rejected anger, and once where the heartbeat was racing with change, as in This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours, Postcards From A Young Man, and Futurology, this new recording is more accepting, even in the face of opposition, that the world cannot in unison come to terms with our own inability to think, and the lurid, vibrant dream of humanity acting as one, is no longer assured.

This is by no means a sense of defeatism, if anything the album’s more low-key attitude is symbolic of showcasing what is missing, the beauty is still there because that is what the band hears and expresses, but it is the anger, the choice of rage as a deliberate tool in the hands of the people, that seems to have been erased, for now at least.

The album has beauty within its soul, but it is to the listener, the ones willing to open their hearts to the sound of decency and vibrant melancholy that comes though the recording, who will benefit, and in tracks such as Orwellian, The Secret He Missed, Complicated Illusions, Into The Waves Of Love and Happy Bored Alone, the threesome at the heart of some of the most important social observations in the last three decades ride the wave of ingenuity and lament with timing, precision and what could be described as the sense of loss, with sincerity of feeling and good honest musical pleasure.

The Ultra Vivid Lament, always welcome, always ready to shine a light on the pain of existence, and one that the Manic Street Preachers do incredibly well. The timing of such an album is important, and there is perhaps no other band that could have produced it.

Ian D. Hall