Manic Street Preachers
Critical Thinking
Columbia
Released 02/14/25
Manic Street Preachers have unveiled their fifteenth studio album Critical Thinking, which follows their 2021 LP The Ultra Vivid Lament. The new album’s arrival is preceded by the official singles “Decline and Fall,” “Hiding in Plain Sight,” “People Ruin Paintings,” and “Brushstrokes of Reunion.”
“I see critical thinking as the ability to reject what you know isn’t right—having the thought to say ‘no’ in response to disseminating information,” the band’s Nicky Wire tells Clash. “One of the big things for us is the resistance of echo chambers. You know, I force myself to read The Guardian, The Daily Mail, The Times—if you wanna defeat your enemy, you’ve got to fucking see them, you know what I mean? It’s a bad way to exist, to be stuck in an echo chamber.”
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