Sep 03 2010 2:42 pm,
Manic Street Preachers
‘Postcards From A Young Man’
(Columbia)
Much will be made of Nicky Wire’s declaration that ‘Postcards From A Young Man’ marks the Manics’ “one last shot at mass communication” – it’ll probably be in the opening line to every other review, too. The real success of their tenth record, though, lay not in its not-so-subtle siren of Great Big Pop Songs but in its continuation of the fine marker of quality set down by ‘Send Away The Tigers’ and ‘Journal For Plague Lovers’. Overwhelming, but never overblown, ‘Postcards...’ sets out its grandiose, bombastic stall from the off, ‘It’s Not War (It’s Just The End Of Love)’’s anthemic string swells a big hint of the hook-heavy singalongs to come. The first half, big thwacking chorus followed by big thwacking chorus, is especially jaw-dropping; the title track’s stompingly defiant outro is exhilaratingly Queen-esque, ‘Some Kind Of Nothingness’ is the most heartbreakingly soulful thing they’ve done since ‘La Tristessa Durera’, whilst ‘Hazelton Avenue’’s nostalgia-pop sounds like Ziggy sprinkling his Stardust over ‘Eleanor Rigby’. An album steeped in rock classicism - there’s nods to Bowie, Mott The Hoople, Oasis and even fat wailer Van Morrison along the way - and their third unrelentingly brilliant album in four years - ‘Postcards...’ is yet more proof that, twenty years into existence, Manic Street Preachers are in the form of their life.
Niall Doherty
