It's not exactly that I'd given up on the Manics, but more that a creeping kind of apathy had overtaken me when it came to the band - I still liked their early to mid period stuff, especially The Holy Bible and Everything Must Go, though more in the abstract than in the actuality of ever really spinning them nowadays, and even Know Your Enemy had its share of moments, but I never got round to Lifeblood and, I guess, disinterest reigned.
But a while back I read an review of Send Away The Tigers, their latest, somewhere on the internets which was all like oh my god the Manic Street Preachers are back in form, so I thought I should listen to it, and guess what - while it's not a patch on those older classics, there's a lot to like here. The album comes across like a glossier Everything Must Go, with a dash of the more riffy hard rock Generation Terrorists, and in "Your Love Alone Is Not Enough" (smashing duet with Nina Persson from the Cardigans - I got totally stuck on this one last Saturday while hanging around at home vefore V festival), "Autumnsong" ("Sweet Child O Mine"-esque guitars!) and "Underdogs" has some quality to it, too.
