Perennially self-deprecating Welsh rockers Manic Street Preachers recently announced a new album is in the works. This comes after a year's worth of uncertainty when the band made no indication they had plans for new music following their greatest hits show in London's O2 Arena. But now frontman James Dean Bradfield has confirmed that a new album--their 11th to date--is definitely happening.
He told Bang Showbiz, "I'm trying to find a good word for the next record. I'm not going to say esoteric because no-one wants to hear that word, it's not even eclectic. He did go on to promise it wouldn't be anything like 2004's Lifeblood, joking "It's not the mess up of Lifeblood, which was disconnected and didn't have much lifeblood. Actually, it was quite blood-less! I think we've done something much better this time."
To put things into perspective, while working on their last album (2010's Postcards from a Young Man), lyricist/bassist Nicky Wire claimed the general aesthetic of the record would be "heavy metal Tamla Motown. Van Halen playing The Supremes!" And before that, he called Lifeblood "Goldfrapp-meets-late '70s era David Bowie." As British music journalist Simon Pierce has pointed out, "You can spot a Manics record a mile off" because "they’ve just developed such a singular, trademark sound over the years that no matter what they do it still comes across as being very much them." In short, why fix what ain't broke.
The new Manics album (which will undoubtedly sound like a Manics album) isn't due until 2014, but the band has a little sideproject to tide them over: write and record music for WWE wrestler Wade Barrett (whose hometown is Lancashire, England). Bradfield issued this plea to the wrester: "Let's just put this out there – if you're listening Wade Barrett we will do your fucking theme tune – just get in touch. That would be the ultimate Situationist, bizarrest spectacle wouldn't it? Us being played over the airwaves in some enormodome in front of 20,000 mad Yanks in Colorado somewhere." [NME]