(New Manics Single) Released To Radio

This probably won't stay up long, but a radio rip from the BBC premiere of new Manics single "(It's Not War) Just The End Of Love" sits below. Forthcoming album Postcards From A Young Man has been described by the band as "One last shot at mass communication" and, more alarmingly, "happy". The single appears to be aiming in precisely that more commercial direction with a sound hewing fairly close to 2007's Send Away The Tigers, correctly hailed as a return to form after 2004's morose MOR shitpile Lifeblood, but nonetheless an album that paled in comparison to last year's brilliant Journal For Plague Lovers.

Not a bad pop single, but inevitably a minor disappointment after the vicious power of Plague Lovers' "Peeled Apples" blasting over the airwaves as a preview to the album this time last year, and missing the immediacy of Tigers first single "Your Love Alone Is Not Enough".

Meanwhile, the album tracklisting shows a worryingly liberal approach toward parentheses, guest spots from John Cale, Ian McCulloch and Duff MacKagen, and the increasingly routine inclusion of a Nicky Wire lead "vocal". Single's out September 13, album in two formats a week later.