Critical Thinking's sonic experiments are some of Manic Street Preacher's finest

2009’s spiky, Steve Albini produced Journal For Plague Lovers was followed up a year later with a gloriously bombastic paean to ELO and Motown via Postcards From A Young Man and similarly, the melancholic acoustic tones of Rewind The Film were subsequently traded in for Pan-European disco rock on Futurology. Critical Thinking, their 15th studio effort, breaks this pattern and is perhaps the first time in their career where they have successfully balanced these very disparate, competing influences throughout the same album.

This is evident immediately, opening with a brutally effective one-two punch. The title track reimagines “Europa Geht Durch Mich” as a caustic slice of twisted post-punk fronted by Nicky Wire, who displays appropriately acerbic wit during spoken word sections that will likely become indispensable gospel to a particular type of Manics fan. As a response, “Decline And Fall” is almost jarring by comparison, with James Dean Bradfield summoning a Stuart Adamson riff against piano flourishes and a surging musical backdrop, in turn perfecting the icy, crystalline arena pop they explored four years ago on The Ultra Vivid Lament. In recent years, Wire’s words have become increasingly inward looking, defeatist even, but here, he finds a simple joy in acceptance as part of a band whose “time has come and gone” and turns it into a thrillingly defiant riposte.

Elsewhere, the considered beauty of “Being Baptised” and single “Hiding In Plain Sight” are both lovely expansions on Bradfield and Wire’s respective recent solo work. “Dear Stephen” isn’t quite the scathing critique of Morrissey that many had initially imagined, instead focusing on the stark, nostalgic power a single object can hold over you. Nevertheless, it’s still momentous when it arrives, decorated in a luscious array of 80s indie guitars – long-time collaborator Dave Eringa provides exquisite production throughout.

It’s almost a given at this point in their career, but as one would anticipate, the lyrics are often wonderful. Whether it be references to Mark Rothko, Phillip Larkin, Allen Toussaint and even metatextual nods to past work, their ability to educate and inform remains undiminished.

There is a moment towards Critical Thinking’s latter half where proceedings threaten to settle into a slight lull, until one final surprise creeps out from the ether. Doused in interrogating self-doubt and barbed lyrical stanzas, “OneManMilitia” is the record's seething pièce de résistance. It’s at this point you're struck with the realisation that only the Manics are capable of making such lacerating nihilism sound so vitally liberating. Another Wire penned track, the bassist’s exhaustion with the modern age has never felt more palpable: “I'm sick of the narratives, I'm done with apologies / I’m sick of conspiracies, the truth is a dead disease.” As its towering instrumental break unfurls, the great musical tapestries of the band’s late career masterpiece Futurology are once again recalled, but the fusing of Wire’s Intimism-shaped melody and a callous repudiation we’ve not really heard since The Holy Bible results in a familiar, yet simultaneously exciting new direction.

Prior to the release of Critical Thinking, Bradfield and Wire both commented on the lack of an MO during the recording process; no mission statement, and seemingly no reason for being. However, it appears they have landed on something magnificent; symphonies of aching, internalised nostalgia and frequent beauty, bookended by hate, despair and some of their finest sonic experiments ever.