Manic Street Preachers set to release new single ‘Decline & Fall’ later this week

28 August, 2024

Manic Street Preachers

Manic Street Preachers have shared that a new single from the band will arrive later this week called ‘Decline & Fall’.

Earlier this week, the band teased the material with a clip of new music on their social media platforms. The band captioned the post on Monday (August 26) with the words, “So much for the Decline & Fall’.

Now, in a new post, the band have confirmed new music is indeed on the way and that it will arrive on August 29. The track will be premiered on BBC6 Music at 5pm BST.

The 20-second clip of the song that was shared earlier this week features a triumphant, rising guitar riff and frenzied drumming, while the video clip opens with a quote from Welsh poet Dylan Thomas: “The highest hymns of the sun are written in the dark”.

The snippet, which stutters with static interruptions, also includes phrases that follow a similar pattern to the caption: “So much for calculations”,  “So much for standing tall”, “So much for implications”, before finally concluding with the same words: “So much for the Decline & Fall”.

The band discussed their upcoming 15th album in an interview with Louder Sound in June, which they described at the time as “90 per cent done” and likely to come out in January or February 2025.

“It has a lot of energy, even though I don’t feel particularly energised,” said bassist and lyricist Nicky Wire. “One of the songs is like a mixture of The Cardigans and The Skids, who are two of our favourite bands, and another sounds like ‘Come Up And See Me’ [by Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel] played by Dinosaur Jr.”

The last Manics album was ‘The Ultra Vivid Lament’ in 2021, their first Number One record in 23 years. In a four star review, NME wrote: “The record has its flaws – the odd misguided lyric, the occasional slip into by-numbers pop melodies – but there’s plenty of space for those mistakes to be made.

“‘Orwellian’’s clunky lambast of the modern world (“We live in Orwellian times / It feels impossible to pick a side”), for instance, is rescued by its gloriously melodramatic instrumental. In the end, they are minor bumps in a record of intense beauty, among the best of the Manics’ records this century.”

Since then, they have re-released their albums ‘Know Your Enemy’ in 2022 and ‘Lifeblood’ earlier this year, while last year Wire surprise released his second solo album ‘Intimism’.

Wire currently has an art exhibition, My Little Empire, running at the Narbeth Museum in Pembrokeshire until December, featuring 26 pieces that showcase his love of the Polaroid image.

The band are also set to celebrate the 30th anniversary of their 1994 album ‘The Holy Bible’ with a one-off screening on August 30 of the concert film BePure-BeVigilant-Behave.

Having recently completed a joint co-headline UK tour with Suede, Manics have recently been confirmed to play at Rockin’ On Sonic festival in Japan in January, alongside Pulp, Weezer and Primal Scream.

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