Apparently, this is the Manics’ big, rockier comeback. You know, the one where they go back to their roots and be the band that we thought we’d lost along with James Dean Bradfield’s slender physique a long time ago. If that’s the case, though, then why does it sound like Robbie Williams cribbing guitar solos from Queen?
The closest thing that this is a return to is ‘Everything Must Go’, which should see it poised to be a big seller. But then, there’s no ‘A Design For Life’. In fact, there’s not even an ‘Australia’. ‘Your Love Alone Is Not Enough’ and ‘Indian Summer’ sound like they’ve come straight from Robbie’s 1998 hit album ‘I’ve Been Expecting You’, ‘Autumnsong’ being more akin to his 2003 single, ‘Come Undone’ with, as MIKA might say, “a little Freddie”.
And just when we were hoping that ‘I’m Just A Pasty’ was going to be a tongue-in-cheek ode to pies, it turns out we misread the sleeve. Disappointing, eh?
Thanks to the glossy production, the punkier bits of this album sound closer to Green Day than anything else. There’s some good tunes on here, but there are good tunes on every Manics album. Yes, we said it, EVERY ALBUM. This one, yet again though, just isn’t the gigantic return to form it was supposed to be.
