10 Manic Street Preachers Hidden Gem Songs

After what Nicky Wire called the band's "one last shot at mass communication" with 2010's Postcards From A Young Man, the Manics came back in 2013 with the first of two records that experimented with what the trio were capable of being.

The first, Rewind The Film, was a sombre folky affair that favoured acoustic guitars and brass bands. The title track also features Richard Hawley on co-lead vocals and tells you everything you need to know about the album in one six-and-a-half-minute burst. The song was released as a promotional single and, while it doesn't capture the pure working-class joy of the album's first proper single, Show Me The Wonder, it does dispense the band's ageing melancholy quite perfectly.

Once again, in what seems like a running theme, the lyrics capture the nostalgia and melancholy of remembering. This time, the subject appears to be less down to Wire's preoccupation with the passage of time, and more of an intentional study of the act of reminiscence and its power to overwhelm the senses.

If nothing else, Nicky is becoming a master of conjuring up those feelings in words, while James and Sean manage to find new musical and sonic means of emphasising them. Hawley's voice is a great fit here, too, his lower register playing off of James' higher voice in a way Nicky's occasional vocal performances might not have managed to convey.