Critical Thinking

'Critical Thinking' celebrates conflicting ideas colliding, with unflinchingly soul-searching lyrics meeting some of the most head-on, addictive melodies the band have ever recorded.

Initially inspired by a line from the poet Anne Sexton ("I am a collection of dismantled almosts"), lead single 'Hiding in Plain Sight' contrasts a fearful midlife nostalgia - one in which the writer longs to "keep the curtains drawn all day" - with a gloriously uplifting melody that draws on classic '70s rock'n'roll of The Only Ones, Cockney Rebel and the loose flow of Dinosaur Jr's 'Freak Scene'. Recorded at the band's Door To The River Studio and Rockfield, Monmouth, the song features a lead vocal by Nicky Wire and added vocals by Lana McDonagh. It was produced by the band with regular collaborators Dave Eringa and Loz Williams and mixed by Caesar Edmunds (St Vincent/Wet Leg). 

Manic Street Preachers' Nicky Wire on Critical Thinking: "This is a record of opposites colliding - of dialectics trying to find a path of resolution. 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.