With that little change, the demo is my preferred version – though it is to be said, even with the minor complaints I have this is still one of the highlights of the album’s second half. Complicated illusions Into the Waves of Love Blank Diary Entry (Feat. It acts like a gentle solo should, providing a moment of flurry before the final rush. Presented in a hardback digibook, complete with a 24-page booklet, this limited. In its place is a minimalistic guitar solo from James, processed so heavily that it could as well be a shimmering synth line – it’s still present in the final song too, quietly mixed under Southall, but the more prominent placement for it in the demo is also more befitting for the song it’s in. album by Manic Street Preachers - including the songs Still Snowing in Sapporo, Orwellian, The Secret He Had Missed (feat. And if you want to back that argument up, you have the demo of the song available on the deluxe edition which is effectively just a less polished version of the final version, but with the key difference that the vocal breakdown isn’t there. Southall’s performance is great, but in the wrong place. It’s a powerhouse climax moment in a song that’s just happy to run through the fields: too much bombast where it’s not necessarily needed. So when that big boisterous guest vocal comes in, it’s just too heavy-handed for the gentle joie de vivre of the song it’s in. Manic Street preachers Still Snowing in Sapporo (Demo) (The Ultra Vivid. This is despite being another piano-guided song and James’ guitar largely remains as a textural element in the background – but on the album that seems them generally embrace the ivory keys, it fits into the wider continuum and as the album has shifted towards its latter half, a breeze of joy and uninhibited melodic prettiness isn’t too far fetched anymore. Manic Street preachers Into the Waves of Love (The Ultra Vivid Lament 2021). ![]() The difference here (and I say this as one of the few defenders of “I Think I Found It”) is that the way this mood is conveyed here makes it a much more natural fit to the world of the Manics. But this has just as much common with actual Manics songs of the recent past which have tried run loose and with a full-hearted smile: think “I Think I Found It” or the most immediate moments of Resistance Is Futile. When Manics are on this kind of easygoing, jubilantly freespirited mode my first thought is always to refer back to The Great Western, James’ first solo album which has in deep secrecy become the foundation of so much of more contemporary Manics over a decade after Bradfield so sheepishly released it – the flourishes of melodies, the lightfooted spring in its step and even the layered vocals all feel like part of that same DNA. But that comparison only serves to highlight the dominance the vocals have on this song, and it honestly bites “Into the Waves of Love” a little.īecause “Into the Waves of Love” is a delicate song – I mean just look at that title, quite possibly the most blissfully twee thing Nicky Wire has ever written down (married to another lyric about his personal loss of direction, of course). Many have noted the similarities in the tone of the vocals with Pink Floyd‘s “The Great Gig in the Sky”, another song similarly fuelled by the powerhouse guest vocals – though in this case, we only spend around 30 seconds in a three minute song with them. It’s really hard not to mention “Into the Waves of Love” and then not instantly talk about the powerhouse vocal performance from Cat Southall that appears without warning or foreshadowing and then disappears just as abruptly, but which leaves a lasting impression. Musically, ‘ The Ultra Vivid Lament’ is inspired by a formative years record box (ABBA, post-Eno Roxy, the Bunnymen, Fables-era REM, Lodger) though the end result could only be the unique union of James Dean Bradfield, Nicky Wire and Sean Moore, collectively one of the UK’s most consistently brilliant rock’n’roll bands for over three decades.So, yeah, about that gospel vocal solo – and yes it’s very appropriate to call a vocal performance a solo in this situation. ![]() It is both reflection and reaction a record that gazes in isolation across a cluttered room, fogged by often painful memories, to focus on an open window framing a gleaming vista of land melting into sea and endless sky. The new album is the 14th studio album from Manic Street Preachers.
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