The third track to be made available from Manic Street Preachers forthcoming fifteenth album is ‘People Ruin Paintings’. Out today, its a lithe and airy new wave track that sails elegantly upon tremulous guitar riffing, nimble base lines and synth sweeps, its keening melodies house an important message about the nature of truth and art, the band describe the song as “musically the three of us playing telepathically, referencing thirty plus years of playing together instinctively”, See the lyric video here.The new album Critical Thinking, due for release 31st January.
They have released two songs off the record so far ‘Decline & Fall’ and the Nicky Wire lead vocal tune ‘Hiding in Plain Sight’ .The band’s UK tour sold out immediately on release last year, they have just returned from their first dates of 2025 in Japan and have been confirmed as playing several festivals in the summer.
‘Critical Thinking’ celebrates conflicting ideas colliding, with unflinchingly soul-searching lyrics meeting some of the most head-on, addictive melodies the band have ever recorded.
Nicky Wire says on the new album (out Jan 31): “This is a record of opposites colliding – of dialectics trying to find a path of resolution. While the music has an effervescence and an elegiac uplift, most of the words deal with the cold analysis of the self, the exception being the three lyrics by James (Dean Bradfield) which look for and hopefully find answers in people, their memories, language and beliefs.“
The music is energised and at times euphoric. Recording could sometimes be sporadic and isolated, at other times we played live in a band setting, again the opposites making sense with each other. There are crises at the heart of these songs. They are microcosms of skepticism and suspicion, the drive to the internal seems inevitable – start with yourself, maybe the rest will follow.”
The record is available on LP, CD, hardbook CD and cassette with two brand new songs available on a limited 7”, a remix of ‘Decline & Fall’ by Steven Wilson and demo versions of all the new album tracks on an extended CD. See the bands official store to see all the versions available.
https://ManicStreetPreachers.lnk.to/store
UK Tour Dates – Sold Out
APRIL
11th – Glasgow Barrowland
12th – Glasgow Barrowland
18th – London O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire
19th – London O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire
25th – Wolverhampton The Civic at the Halls
26th – Bristol Beacon
MAY
2nd – Manchester O2 Apollo
3rd – Manchester O2 Apollo
9th – Swansea Arena
10th – Swansea Arena
Photo credit / Alex Lake
