Manic Street Preachers: Send Away the Tigers – getting back their glam/pop stripes

Send away the Tigers
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Artist: Manic Street Preachers
Genre: Rock
Label: Columbia

After the Welsh band's seventh studio album, Lifeblood (2004), an exercise in raking through themes such as solitude, death and nightmares, Manic Street Preachers needed to cheer up.

Send Away the Tigers is the album that did exactly that; they released their grip on the tragedy of disappeared original member Richey Edwards and constructed a batch of songs that were, as usual, hard-edged and dynamic, but which were spiked with the kind of glam/pop elegance not heard since their 1992 debut, Generation Terrorists.

Celebrating its 10th anniversary (with extras such as b-sides/rarities/DVD), Send Away the Tigers placed the band at the opposite end of humdrum, with songs as pitch-perfect as Indian Summer, Autumnsong and Your Love Alone Is Not Enough propelling them towards a rewarding new phase.

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Tony Clayton-Lea

Tony Clayton-Lea

Tony Clayton-Lea is a contributor to The Irish Times specialising in popular culture