Manic Street Preachers nod to The Waterboys and R.E.M. on new single ‘Brushstrokes Of Reunion’

nme.com:

Manic Street Preachers have dropped the reflective new single ‘Brushstrokes Of Reunion’. Check it out below.Shared today (January 31), the track marks the latest single from the group’s forthcoming album.

Titled ‘Critical Thinking’, the record will be the band’s 15th studio LP and is available to pre-order here.Originally, the record was set to be released today, although this was later pushed back to February 14 due to production delays.Now, with ‘Brushstrokes Of Reunion’ the Manics have shared further insight into the album as a whole, and captured a nod to both their earlier days and a homage to two of their peers.“I listened to the sound of your singing / Now the pain had reached / Its final limit,” frontman James Dean Bradfield sings atop uplifting, bright instrumentals. “The colour of distance had found its mission / It was not a reminder / It was a vision”.Speaking about the inspiration for the single, the band said that ‘Brushstrokes Of Reunion’ has “nods to imperial-era Waterboys, particularly the love and desperation of ‘Rags’ – R.E.M. ‘Life’s Rich Pageant’ meets classic Manics crunch + velocity”.They continued: “Lyrically, it’s about the hypnotic quality of a painting that’s inherited from someone who has passed.” Check it out above, alongside a Kieran Evans-directed video.The single follows on from the recently shared euphoric track ‘People Ruin Paintings’, which saw the group explore the “destruction of truth”.As for the record as a whole, ‘Critical Thinking’ has been described as “a record of opposites colliding – of dialectics trying to find a path of resolution”.Speaking to NME in October, bassist and singer Nicky Wire shared what fans can expect from the release. “While the music has an effervescence and.