Lifeblood 20

20th Anniversary Edition of Manic Street Preachers' seventh studio album 'Lifeblood'. This 2024 3CD Deluxe edition features many remastered tracks, b-sides, demos and outtakes, new liner notes by John Harris and unseen pictures by Mitch Ikeda. Also included is two brand new remixes of the lead track '1985' by Steven Wilson (Porcupine Tree) and sometime collaborator Welsh artist Gwenno. Described by Nicky Wire as "our most estranged album of all" the record came at a time when the band were reflecting on what they had become and what they could be. The band looked to the music they had liked when they were young for inspiration, New Order circa 'Low Life', Prefab Sprout 'Steve McQueen', Thomas Dolby 'The Flat Earth', early Simple Minds, and the kind of cerebral electronic pop that dominated the early-to-mid 1980s. Wire said at the time "The main lyrical themes are death and solitude and ghosts. Being haunted by history and being haunted by your own past." James Dean Bradfield commented "I loved making Lifeblood, because it was interesting. I loved chasing these other versions of what we were trying to do."