I've felt always felt the line "I don't believe in Absolutes anymore" is probably one of the more important lines of the post Lifeblood era. You can sort of trace everything back to that sentiment and why they Irk so many because they can't pin the band anything other than grey or agnostic. Seems like Critical Thinking will return to this theme quite a bit.

having heard it over the christmas period, for me possibly the first sign of the decline is in Ghosts of Christmas where they say something like "no X-Box and no computers, we had to use our imagination". remember it now as the first time I couldn't argue the "dad rock" accusations thrown their way.

PFAYM is a prime example of where the majority of b-sides of the era are arguably a lot better than most of the album itself. Midnight Sun, Distractions, Lost Voices, I'm Leaving You For Solitude, Red Rubber, Inky Fingers, The Passing Show and I Know The Numbers are brilliant b-sides and quite a few of them are in my top 50, whereas only one PFAYM album track (the title track) is.

Poor and cringy lyrics, overblown production and substandard arrangements litter the album unfortunately. I did like it at the time but looking back it's probably my least favourite Manics album, unfortunately.

I have also re-listened to to PFAYM and this is my slightly shorter review:

Golden Platitudes - Brilliant, still deserves all the plaudits it gets
PFAYM - Much better then either of the other singles, should have been the lead
Billion Balconies/All We Make is Entertainment/Future Has Been Here 4 Ever - Solid album tracks
SKON/It's Not War/The Descent - Decent songs destroyed by over production
Auto Intoxication - Forgettable
Hazelton Avenue/I Think I Found It/Don't Be Evil - Shite

Some of the B-sides are way better, particularly I'm Leaving You for Solitude, Inky Fingers and the fabulous Engage with Your Shadow.

I'd certainly rate it as one of their weakest albums, all four of the ones they've released since have been much better, in my opinion.

I particularly liked It's Not War and found the lyrics affecting though also am turned off by..."cringyness" of his lyrics sometimes.
Disliked the next two singles and didn't get the album.

Those lyrics are trite, but the sentiment was nothing new. Back from the days of "the past was so beautiful, the future like a corpse in snow" they've been essentially saying the same thing, that their childhood was the best time of their lives and everything else that has happened since, be that personal or societal, has been a disappointment.

It's funny, as it is it's (to me) such a cringeworthy album but there is a part of me that would buy a stripped down shorter LP of songs a la 'Let it be....naked' strippping the strings and choirs or even one with lifeblood style production*. The whole album is the sound of a band with their friend who is just happy for the job producing and never critiqing their choices.

*With the exceptions of Hazelton Avenue and All we make is entertainment (the thievery is just too blatant even with strings etc. removed) for them to survive.

Am I right in remembering that they'd said around 2009/10 that it was the album with the most amount of lyrics that James had either rejected or asked for a rewrite!? Off the back of JFPL, that raised a titter, didn't bode well.

SKON, Billion Balconies, Auto-Intoxication and Golden Platitudes I like. Don't be Evil is ok. Don't really get the love for the title track. The rest is horrid. I'm still not sure whether I prefer SATT... it sounds better, but there are still songs on there I can't remember, nearly 18 years later.

I actually revisited the trilogy of 'Manics by numbers' albums, and to me, RiF stands head and shoulders above those two, there's some definite Futurology-friendly material on the superb second side.

Went into HMV today and pre-ordered the album on clear vinyl using some vouchers. Already getting the 2 CD version as a belated Christmas gif rom my parents. Yay!! :)

I remember them saying in some interviews that they had so many lyrics as they didn’t use any of them for a few years and had so many songs to choose from.

For all the stick PFAYM deservedly gets, I do think RiF is by far their least inspired and worst album. I even think international blue is awful. Very very cynical though the lyric I think is quite sincere.

Although I do like the guitar tracks on the second half. And the fact In Eternity is about Bowie.

I don't know why SATT gets such a bad rap, most of its great. Yes it sounds "exactly like the Manics" but I like the Manics so don't see that as an inherently bad thing. Just a Patsy is awful though.

Because it's about the time they decided to mine their own back catalogue, not just other artists. It also featured some of their worst ever songs, both musically and lyrically - Underdogs, Autumnsong, I'm Just A Patsy, Winterlovers (UGHHHH) so that's nearly half the album which is bad. The Lennon cover is dreadful. Indian Summer is a DFL rehash in the verses. The whole aesthetic is GT meets EMG, which is so calculated to try and recapture older fans and get NME back onside. Can't really blame them as it worked, they had more hits, NME gave them an award, they played the Big Gig etc. But for those of us there at the time, it seemed like such a shame to throw away the experimentation of the previous years.

Fully agree with this. It's undoubtedly my least favourite album they have made to date. Before RIF, SATT and PFAYM both ranked lowest for me because I loved at least half of the tracks (and a plethora of b-sides) but found the other halves to be completely uninspired, swiftly dated and by-the-numbers.

When RIF came out, I was astonished at how lazy and predictable it sounded. After a few years of anniversary tours and reissues, it just felt like they'd put 'make a Manics album' in the diaries, woken up early without having their morning coffee, and went into the studio on autopilot to churn out the most generic sounding Manics album they could muster in the moment. I've hardly been able to listen to it in full since it came out, there were maybe four songs on the second half that I enjoyed at most.

Which brings me neatly to Tigers...

Yeah, looking back, I think the best thing about this album is that the period gave them a bit of rejuvenation and the gigs were very exciting and energetic, but some of the songs on that are pretty appalling really.