For the past few months I’ve been listening to Manic Street Preachers’ 2007 LP Send Away The Tigers. I couldn’t tell you what the catalyst for this was but, I’ve been listening to it regularly in the car, on the train or loudly at home.
I think at its time of release I only regularly heard Your Love Alone Is Not Enough which features The Cardigans’ Nina Persson, as this collaboration seemed to get a lot of airplay at the time.
However when you listen back now, the album is full to the brim with songs that regularly get me toe tapping or singing along regardless of where I am.
Titular opening track Send Away The Tigers rises nicely with organs, with a jangly guitar laying on top, then drums and strummed bass cutting in like a chainsaw. Before a more melodic vocal and guitar with the ever evocative lyrics the Manics are well known for.
Underdogs’ could be a great anthem for a new generation of alternative sub-cultures. The snare hits in the crescendo have me fiercely stomping my foot along, no matter where I am.
Nina Persson’s co lead vocals on Your Love Alone Is Not Enough act as a wonderful counter point to James Dean Bradfield’s more angular vocals. A song that still makes an appearance in the Manics live set almost two decades later.
After the grand intro of Rendition it breaks into a fast paced yet soaring song that could fit on Generation Terrorists. I’m also not sure many other bands could write a song about state sponsored kidnappng.
Autumnsong has a beautiful playfulness to its lyrical questioning “Now, baby, what have you done to your hair?” Which is such a juxtaposition sandwiched between Rendition and I’m Just A Patsy, which is a quote from Lee Harvey Oswald!
A great thick bluesy cover of John Lennon’s Working Class Hero (originally a hidden track at the end of Winterlovers) brings the album to a crashing close.