"The Ultra Vivid Lament" is the fourteenth studio album by Welsh alternative rock band Manic Street Preachers, released on September 10, 2021, by Columbia Records. The album was preceded by the singles "Orwellian" and "The Secret He Had Missed." It features contributions from Julia Cumming and Mark Lanegan. The album received positive reviews from critics and debuted at number 1 on the UK Albums Chart.
The album represents a departure from their 2018 effort Resistance Is Futile. The announcement made clear that the new record would avoid addressing the COVID-19 pandemic, with Bradfield stating that focusing on it would "add insult to injury." Reflecting on writing during lockdown, James Bradfield noted that it was a way to maintain a sense of normalcy: "The escape was literally checking to see that the world around you wasn't crumbling when you wrote a song. Lockdown had the element of a waking dream for a lot of people, especially the first one last year. Writing music was a way of pinching myself to say, 'There's still a part of life that works in the same way that it did, albeit in a strange way.'"
Wire managed to cope well with the isolation, saying, "I'm a very patient and lonely person. I can deal with isolation and have always embraced utter boredom quite easily. You see the tragedy and agony unfolding around you and it feels a bit glib to say something like that."
The death of Wire's parents also impacted the album's creation. His father, who had been ill during the making of Resistance Is Futile, passed away after its release. Wire described his parents as significant influences on his life: "Having the parents that I had is probably the greatest thing that ever happened in my life. I really liked them; I didn't just love them. I liked talking to them, I'd speak to them every day. They were highly engaged, important, funny people." He attributed his own traits to his parents: "Rage from my dad, he was a mental and physical force. And from my mum, kindness and femininity, an appreciation of aesthetic and the bliss of just sitting down and watching TV together."
During lockdown, Bradfield learned to play piano, and Wire's approach to lyrics became more introspective: "The lockdown pushed me into facing my own horrors, rather than the horrors outside. The songs that emerged are internal galaxies, of exploration within myself. I think they're the most personal lyrics I've ever written." Confronting the loss of his parents allowed him to delve deeper into his emotions, with the loss "overhanging the lyrics." Wire described the music as having elements of Lifeblood and Futurology, but evolving into a new dimension, influenced by ABBA and Echo & the Bunnymen: "It's very much framed within ABBA's 'Waterloo' and Echo & the Bunnymen's 'Bring On the Dancing Horses'."
The band found there weren't many songs to choose from for the album. Wire mentioned that if a song didn't fit, it was either discarded or set aside. The Japanese version of the album includes two extra tracks, "My Drowning World" and "Time of Reckoning," that didn't make the main cut. Bradfield described the creative process as intuitive: "I knew I wanted to treat it like The Clash playing Abba. When something like that happens naturally, you have to latch on to it. There was no mission statement, no M.O. You get a clue that pulls you in the right direction. Nick had a couple more lyrics and he gave them to me and the ball started rolling."
The choice of title came easily to Bradfield after a day at Rockfield Studios: "Nick first mentioned it. I connected with it straight away. He showed me the artwork, I loved the figure staring out at the sea. It reminded me of The Truman Show nature of lockdown and what that was. Being trapped in this beautiful world, you couldn't touch, or couldn't stay for too long."
Wire summed up the album-making process: "Everything has been chipped away at, but ourselves and by outside factors. With this album we looked at each other and realized that the only thing we’ve got left, the essence of the band, is creativity. It's the last thing that binds us together. We thought let's make the most of that. Let's cherish it."
