What’s one more streaming album preview to add to all those you spent the weekend catching up on? Especially when it’s the brand new “radio-friendly” follow up to Journal for Plague Lovers by the Manic Street Preachers, which is playing over at the Guardian (and via we7.com).

It’s certainly a heck of a lot lighter than the last record and there’s a clear bias towards tracks which an audience will be able to get behind, but can the Manics pick up that elusive mass audience that really went for them with Everything Must Go; or have they sold out for the popstar dollar?

I’ve gotta say that on first listen, I’m going to give this a thumbs up – although maybe we’re more in the territory of This is My Truth, Tell Me Yours than its epic predecessor. Having said that, there’s a kind of brash confidence in some of these tracks which is completely unlike anything I’ve ever heard from this group; and it really is all to the good.

Here’s hoping that the Manics find their just reward with this after the catharsis of Journal, too!

The Guardian: Manic Street Peachers - Postcards from a Young Man

Single “(It’s Not War) Just The End of Love” is out today. The album will be out next week.