Manic Street Preachers - Resistance is Futile (Deluxe Edition) (2018)

Resistance Is Futile is the forthcoming thirteenth album by Welsh alternative rock band Manic Street Preachers. The album was announced on 17 November 2017 and is scheduled to be released on 13 April 2018.

Early in 2017 Kieran Evans said that he was not working on the new album with the band, and that he heard two new songs that sounded "very, very melodious"; the album was expected to drop later in 2017, but then they had to move to a new studio and it got pushed back. Band member Nicky Wire said that this was a very long gap for the group, and if the new songs were not good enough they would not come out. There was much speculation on whether they were releasing a new album at all, with Wire saying that the last two albums might have drained the band in terms of creativity, with the band saying that they were "in a funny place".

Despite this, in November 2017 the band announced the new album, their first to be recorded at their new studio near Newport. Described as "widescreen melancholia", and an attempt to recall the sound of Generation Terrorists and Everything Must Go, the band said that the album came together after some "old school hard work", focusing deep on every song so they could be "as best as possible".

The themes behind the album are memory and loss, forgotten history, confused reality and art as a hiding place and inspiration, with the band releasing further information saying that "It's obsessively melodic – in many ways referencing both the naive energy of 'Generation Terrorists' and the orchestral sweep of 'Everything Must Go'. After delay and difficulties getting started, the record has come together really quickly over the last few months through a surge of creativity and some old school hard work."

Also, it has been pointed out by Wire that the album is a kind of a mix where many songs can reflect past albums:"It was a bit more pick and mix. We wanted to write twelve songs that… not necessarily twelve singles but twelve songs that gave us a bit of vitality." Many songs as "Hold Me Like a Heaven" trace back to "Everything Must Go" and "Broken Algorithms" that "has a bit of 'Sleepflower' in it as well."

Bradfield tackled the subject of whether this could be or not the final album by the band, saying that: "People secretly like to know when things are going to end and for something to have a finite time span, but I instinctively rail against that. I never had the urge to buy a flash car. I never had a drug problem. Instead, I constantly bought guitars. I like to think we push it further than people expect us to. We want to outdo ourselves and people’s expectations." Also about supporting Guns N' Roses in the summer Bradfield shared that "I know Duff McKagan and I’ve played onstage with him before,” Bradfield explains. “We keep in touch. He is such a lovely, cool dude. I don’t use the word dude much, but for someone like Duff McKagan, it is entirely appropriate. When we were asked to do these dates, we were thrilled to bits."

Tracklist:
Disc 1
1. People Give In
2. International Blue
3. Distant Colours
4. Vivian
5. Dylan & Caitlin
6. Liverpool Revisited
7. Sequals of Forgotten Wars
8. Hold Me Like a Heaven
9. In Eternity
10. Broken Algorithms
11. A Song for the Sadness
12. The Left Behind

Disc 2
1. People Give In (Demo)
2. International Blue (Demo)
3. Distant Colours (Demo)
4. Vivian (Demo)
5. Dylan & Caitlin (Demo)
6. Liverpool Revisited (Demo)
7. Sequels of Forgotten Wars (Demo)
8. Hold Me Like a Heaven (Demo)
9. In Eternity (Demo)
10. Broken Algorithms (Demo)
11. Song for the Sadness (Demo)
12. The Left Behind (Demo)
13. Concrete Fields
14. A Soundtrack to Complete Withdrawal