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“As for the rest of the world, they can’t realize /… I’m a rebel, so I rebel.”
– Chuck D
“Destroy the cult of the past, the obsession with the ancients.”
– The Manifesto of Futurist Painters
There is an episode of Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror, in which a young man criticises the established order. In turn, he receives a television show, having wowed the very people he condemned. As a result and despite his calls for a resistance to the system, he ends up part of the world that he despises, posing as an antagonist without substance or self-awareness.
Countless artists once deemed rebels fall into similar states of complacency; the Sex Pistols, Monty Python etc. The list of former renegades who found success and ended up as nostalgic performers is endless and continually growing. Enter the Manic Street Preachers, the band who go on hating everything, with Futurology, their twelfth album and second in ten months.
You will often hear of a band saying that once in their history, they have pushed the self-destruct button and started again. The Manics have done this at least nine times in twenty-two years, in trying to stay true to part of what they said back in the early 90s when they were the Socialist Guns n’ Roses outsiders.
The promise came in the form of a quotation inserted into the 1992 album Generation Terrorists, from the aforementioned Manifesto of Futurist Painters, which read: “Regard art critics as useless and dangerous.” This aphorism embodies how the band consistently challenged their initial depiction in the press, both positive and negative, refusing to rehash old ideas and appease the endless cries for The Holy Bible 2. It has been two decades of perversion, wherein each album directly contradicts the previous effort, sometimes anthemic, other times as vicious as 1994’s The Holy Bible, but adapted to their present state. Yet these past ten months have proven their most radical inasmuch as they have boldly reinvented themselves twice. The band surrendered their arsenal of guitars for synthesizers and krautrock on Futurology – a polar opposite to their acoustic album Rewind the Film, released last September. It has been something that bassist and lyricist Nicky Wire has been hinting at for years and the result has not fallen short of the mark.
As opposed to re-writing their dark 1994 magnum opus, they have made a spiritual successor to the original would-be-Holy Bible record, 2008’s Journal for Plague Lovers, whilst retaining a measure of the tranquil reflectiveness that made Rewind the Film a strong evolution sonically. However, this maturity is more evident in the masterfully crafted Eno and Low-era Bowie soundscapes. Lyrically, the album only touches upon the subject of an aging group on the lead single, Walk Me to the Bridge, which explores the worth of being in a rock band once in your forties. It is a brave moment of self-awareness, and the song is instantly memorable with one hell of a chorus (if, at the same time, being a bit of a sleeper classic). The vast majority of the content is a return to their politically charged state of looking outwards, now discussing European politics and culture, made all the more relevant as Euroscepticism becomes increasingly prominent in British society at present.
In a way, Futurology is one of their finest victories since Everything Must Go, because it has corrected the electronic misfire that was Lifeblood, whilst proving that they can create a panzer assault of an album without having to lean on the disturbing, but stunning mark left by Richey Edwards. He does not need to be present to be rightfully honoured by the band when they rebel.
This is an unapologetic acceptance of the present, remaining true to their original ambition and solid proof that there is no valid excuse for failing to look forward.
Futurology is out now on Columbia records. €12.99 CD and €10 on iTunes.
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