Manic Street Preachers - Send Away The Tigers (Columbia)
4/5
By: Alex Lee Thomson
For over ten years Manic Street Preachers have been bland backwash merchants that your nan liked, and although 'A Design For Life' gave them some hope post Richey Edwards, they were always generally regarded as a sluice of sound-the-samey vocals drowned in sound... and who in their right minds likes music that's been drowned in sound? Shock bloody horror though that after a hiatus of a few years, a solo album (likewise as uninspiring) and generally a whole lot of inactivity they've returned with - though thousands will disagree with me here - perhaps the best album of their career.
The shy and withdrawn vocals have turned into violent, catchy shards of powerful and tuneful revolt that cuddle amazing riffs and dodgy but well designed bass lines. 'Your Love Alone' has been getting some upright interest over the past month or so and yet it still surprises people when they hear whom it's by. It's got the same vibrant delight that modern bands have and although you can hear over a decade of, well, Manic in it, it also contains enough modern pop vigour to make you sit up and take notice. The strings are perfect, just perfect, and the diving and articulate vocals lightly pacify the punch bag of harmonies that work in every section of the quiet-loud song which lends a glorious environment to the tune, making it one of the best preaches the band has ever conceived. It's always tremendous when a classic artist can turn their whole sound around and deliver something as wonderful as this and with 'Send Away The Tigers' they've made an album brimful of towering and exciting tunes worthy of the Tate Modern.
'Indian Summer' tries to pull 'em back to the repetition that salted their previous works but not even the sub-Verve strings could halt the uproar that the songs chorus brings with its sharp and dynamic guitars and Elton John on acid vocal stutters. As for 'The Second Great Depression' and 'Rendition', you'd have been happy to find these on the Guillemots album, or somebody with an equally as highly regarded persuasion for unique song making. The competing guitars in 'Rendition' splutter out fighting leaders that would seem at home on a late Pixies LP and beg you to ask why the Preachers weren't doing this ten years ago. One band you never would have compared the Manics to in the 90s would be Queen, but the deranged and ragingly unhinged lyrics slant the heights of the Meat Loaf 'Bat II' musical accomplishments and take on a humungous rock operatic distain that 'I'm Just A Patsy' also adheres to in a kind of sincere 'Boulevard of Broken Dreams' or 'Sams Town' manner.
You have to take a moment to think about it before you believe that you're comparing this album with Green Day, The Killers, Queen and at moments Thin Lizzy, but when you take each song at a time you can find hints and suggestions of rock greatness and best of all, and this is something none of their previous albums have ever managed to do, '...Tigers' never gets cyclically monotonous. Each song sounds brilliant and the album kneads them into a blast of pop rock exuberance that shifts and mangles throughout keeping your concentration with a pick 'n' mix of remarkable scope and sex fuelled intensity manifested in music form... and hey, it may have taken the best part of a decade, but their return to form has been well worth the wait.
Free download of 'Underdogs' from 'Send Away The Tigers' available HERE.
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