Manic Street Preachers have announced details of their new album ‘Resistance Is Futile’, along with a huge UK arena tour for 2018.

Just last month the band teased that they may never make another album, but now they’ve revealed that 2018 will see the release of their 13th album. Recorded at their new HQ of ‘Door To The River’ Studios near Newport, ‘Resistance Is Futile’ has been described as “widescreen melancholia”. The follow-up to the acclaimed companion albums of the acoustic-led ‘Rewind The Film‘ and the eclectic ‘Futurology‘, it will be released via Columbia/Sony on April 6, 2018 – and can be pre-ordered here.

“The main themes of ‘Resistance is Futile’ are memory and loss; forgotten history; confused reality and art as a hiding place and inspiration,” said the band in a statement. “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.”


Watch the trailer for the album below

Manic Street Preachers tour dates and tickets

The band’s upcoming UK arena tour dates are below. Tickets will be on sale from 9am on Friday November 25 and will be available here.

23 April NEWCASTLE, Metro Radio Arena

25 April GLASGOW, The SSE Hydro Arena

27 April BIRMINGHAM, Arena

28 April MANCHESTER, Arena

1 May LLANDUDNO, Venue Cymru Arena

2 May LEEDS, First Direct Arena

4 May LONDON, The SSE Arena Wembley

5 May CARDIFF, Motorpoint Arena

Earlier this year, frontman James Dean Bradfield told NME that while progress on new material had been slow due to them needing to find a new studio, he was keen to ‘rock again‘ with a heavier sound on their next album. This comes after collaborator Kieran Evans told us that the new songs he heard were sounding ‘classic and melodious‘.


“I suppose in my head, not that it fucking matters, but I would like to kick against the oblique, delineated, opaque groove that everybody is into. I’d like to rock again,” he said. Asked if they felt inspired by the current state of politics with Donald Trump, Brexit and the rise of the right, Bradfield replied: “Not at the moment, no. I feel pretty misanthropic against all political sides at the moment.

“I feel as if the left have conspired to create some of the mood by having no empathy for what you might call a classic Labour vote, and the right have definitely conspired to get us into an actual vortex of horror. I feel like a man without a party at the moment.”