Manic Street Preachers bassist Nicky Wire has explained how he has found inspiration from the latest Arctic Monkeys album Tranquillity Base Hotel & Casino.

Wire, who has been with the Manics since 1988 and is responsible for a lot of the lyrics used on their 13 studio albums, believes the lyrical work by Alex Turner on their recent album has made it “one of the great lyrical albums of all time.”

While discussing his methods of writing lyrics himself, Wire said: “the gap was because my lyrics were trying too hard to reach the esoteric peaks of ‘Futurology’. Once I found a way of disconnecting myself from that, it was fine.”

After explaining that he and his band-mates are always itching to write new songs, Wire’s attention turned to recent events in the music industry and specifically the work by Arctic Monkeys: “To be honest, I’ve been inspired by Arctic Monkeys’ new album,” said in an interview with NME before adding “lyrically it’s such a tour de force. It’s one of the great lyrical albums of all time – the wizardry of the rhymes, the topics and the substance, I’ve found those words really inspirational. The first time I heard ‘Four Out Of Five’, I knew it was something intrinsically interesting,” he added.

Delving deeper, Wire was asked if he has been a keen follower of the band in the past, to which he answered: “To be honest, I’ve never been their biggest fan before. I’ve always admired them lyrically and I love the ‘Submarine’ soundtrack Alex Turner did, but the lyrics on this record feel like he’s thrown off the shackles.

“It’s out of this world, there’s no lyricists matching that in modern pop music,” he said before quoting a track from the Arctic Monkeys album: “A montage of the latest ancient ruins/soundtracked by a chorus of You Don’t Know What You’re Doing’” – that’s sensational writing.”

[MORE] – Watch Arctic Monkeys play ‘Four Out of Five’ live on “Fallon”