Manic Street Preachers have shared details of their 15th studio album ‘Critical Thinking’.

Due January 31, 2025, the LP features previous single Decline & Fall plus their new track Hiding In Plain Sight, which sees bassist and lyricist Nicky Wire take on lead vocals.

On the album, Wire said: “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.

“The music is energised and at times euphoric. Recording could sometimes be sporadic and isolated, at other times we played live in a band setting, again the opposites making sense with each other.

“There are crises at the heart of these songs. They are microcosms of skepticism and suspicion, the drive to the internal seems inevitable – start with yourself, maybe the rest will follow.”

‘Critical Thinking’ is out January 31, 2025 and available to pre-order from Amazon, HMV, Rough Trade, Townsend and more. Listen to Hiding In Plain Sight below.

In support of the album, the group will embark on a spring tour of the UK, with stops in Glasgow, London, Wolverhampton, Bristol, Manchester and Swansea. Dates have been routed for Friday and Saturday nights.

Tickets go on sale Friday, November 1 and are available here. The full list of dates is below.

April 2025
11 – Barrowland, Glasgow
12 – Barrowland, Glasgow 
18 – O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire, London
19 – O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire, London
25 – The Civic at the Halls, Wolverhampton
26 – Beacon, Bristol

May 2025
2 – O2 Apollo, Manchester
3 – O2 Apollo, Manchester
9 – Arena, Swansea
10 – Arena, Swansea