[Marat Sar]

I love it. I like the sentiment in the chorus, it's one I find myself thinking of quite often. Do we live in a flashback? Feels like one, with all the sepia tinged sadness -- except that there's everything to fear.

The verses are really pretty and nicely sparse. I like that Futurology / Lifeblood style electronic sound to the drums, the snares especially have a gorgeous lightness to them. Sean Moore is so tasteful and clever at producing his percussion at this point, every song has a different drum sound. The bass too is nice and liquid. There are some electronic bass elements I think. The verses have a Futurology feel to them for me, whereas the chorus goes more SATT / PFAYM but not all the way there.

I feel this is shaping up to be a mix of the excellent RTF / Futurology expansiveness and mild electronica, with SATT and PFAYM woohoo big chorus populism. I disliked the latter but love the former, the mix of the two is surprisingly fresh.

International Blue didn't have me as excited, this does.

One thing though -- I would *love* both songs with guitars sounding like 1985, instead of Gold Against The Soul gibson throwbacks. More glacial, but hey -- at this point, who the fuck cares? JDB sounds great, the music is really emotional and sort of banks in on JDB's War on Drugs hots too. Incorporates new ideas and feels like an approaching of an event It's unbelievable that they're still doing this and saying things I feel I need to hear from them.

The Mighty Manic Street Preachers.