Album review: Manic Street Preachers, The Ultra Vivid Lament: 'More than a return to form..'
Manic Street Preachers, The Ultra Vivid Lament.
Four stars
Arty, provocative and tinged with tragedy following the February 1995 disappearance of Richey Edwards, the mythology around Manic Street Preachers was often more interesting than their actual music. That was especially true of their post-Edwards “imperial” phase, when they steamrolled the charts with self-worthy plodders such as A Design For Life (which could have been called “A Design for Gatecrashing Britpop).
