Manic Street Preachers share details of 15th album ‘Critical Thinking’

Manic Street Preachers have announced that their fifteenth studio album, ‘Critical Thinking’, will be released on 31st January 2025 via Columbia. 

Described by bassist/lyricist Nicky Wire as “a record of opposites colliding”, the LP follows 2022’s ‘Know Your Enemy’ and this year’s remastered anniversary version of ‘Lifeblood’ (dubbed ‘Lifeblood 20’), as well as MSP’s and Suede’s recent co-headline tour.

Speaking more about ‘Critical Thinking’, Nicky has said: “While the music has an effervescence and an elegiac uplift, most of the words deal with the cold analysis of the self, the exception being the three lyrics by James (Dean Bradfield) which look for and hopefully find answers in people, their memories, language and beliefs.

“Recording could sometimes be sporadic and isolated, at other times we played live in a band setting, again the opposites making sense with each other. There are crises at the heart of these songs. They are microcosms of skepticism and suspicion, the drive to the internal seems inevitable - start with yourself, maybe the rest will follow.”

Alongside the album’s official announcement, Manic Street Preachers have also shared its flagship single ‘Hiding In Plain Sight’ - on which Nicky takes up lead vocal duties for the first time - and confirmed plans for an accompanying UK headline tour (tickets go on sale from 9:30am on Friday 1st November here). 

You can listen to ‘Hiding In Plain Sight’ and check out MSP’s 2025 tour dates (all of which take place on Friday and Saturday nights!) below.