Manic Street Preachers have delayed their next album, blaming the global pandemic

NME

Manic Street Preachers have delayed the release of their next studio album, ‘The Ultra Vivid Lament’, citing the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic as the cause.

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In a post to the band’s Facebook page on Tuesday (July 27), they explained: “Due to a production issue relating to the global pandemic, Manic Street Preachers new album ‘The Ultra Vivid Lament’ will now be released on Friday September 10th.”

The follow-up to 2018’s ‘Resistance Is Futile’, ‘The Ultra Vivid Lament’ will feature previously released singles ‘Orwellian’ and the uplifting ‘The Secret He Had Missed’, featuring Sunflower Bean’s Julia Cumming.

Speaking to NME on the latter collaboration, Manic Street Preachers bassist and lyricist Nicky Wire said: “It’s probably the most Abba-influenced track on the album, the piano track especially.

“It’s what we would call pop in our world – that glacial kind of controlled energy that comes out in something melancholic, but uplifting.”

The band had teased fans about the highly anticipated new arrival, sharing a list of nine potential song titles back in January alongside a message that read: “Album 14 progressing well”.

In an interview with MOJO magazine last week, Wire had criticised “left-leaning actors and pop stars” for “queuing up to accept honours from the monarchy”, admitting he would rather “fucking stab my eyes out with a pencil” than accept a knighthood or OBE.

The bassist also recently apologised for controversial comments he made in 1993 where he expressed a wish that R.E.M‘s Michael Stipe would die of AIDS.

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