Futurology is the twelfth studio album by Welsh alternative rock band Manic Street Preachers. It was released on 7 July 2014 by record label Columbia. The album features contributions from Green Gartside, Nina Hoss, Georgia Ruth, Cian Ciaran and Cate Le Bon.
Supported by two singles, Walk Me to the Bridge and the title track Futurology, the album has been met with critical acclaim and is their highest charting album since Send Away the Tigers, peaking and debuting at number 2 on the UK Album Chart.
Futurology was the Manic's second new album to be released in the space of a year, having been recorded alongside 2013's Rewind the Film, an album described by the group as being "gentle and delicate" in contrast to the icy, multi-layered and angular Futurology. The album was recorded in Germany with Alex Silva, with whom the band worked on The Holy Bible in 1994, and at Faster Studios, Wales. The album was described to be inspired by modern art and the sense of motion that the band experienced touring the heart of Europe in 2011 in support of National Treasures – The Complete Singles.
About the European inspiration that took over the band in the new record, singer and guitarist James Dean Bradfield stated that: "We started touring mainland Europe in late '91 so obviously we've seen Belfast change in front of our eyes, we've seen Berlin change unbelievably and parts of Belgium… every city in Britain we've seen change. I'd never been abroad before I was in a band, Actually, I'd been abroad once, I'd been to Bristol."
Bradlfield also tackled the subject of the many guest that have appeared on the last two Manic Street Preachers records, Rewind the Film and Futurology: "One of the saddest - or rather most telling - things about collaborations is that our first was with Traci Lords and none of us had seen a Traci Lords film. Can you imagine that happening now? Ever? But seriously, there are two simple things: I sing in quite a girlie register, let's face it, so it's easy to imagine a woman's voice in our music. And, secondly, I'm 12 albums in - I know my voice can only do certain things, and if I can't take other people singing on the track then I really have got a Napoleon complex. I'm short enough to have one…".
Two songs from Futurology - "Europa Geht Durch Mich" and title track "Futurology" - were debuted on the first night of the 2014 UK Tour, at the First Direct Arena on 28 March 2014. A third one, "Let's Go to War", was first heard at the Brixton Academy, and described by bassist Nicky Wire as a "nice marching song". The track "Walk Me to the Bridge", and its accompanying music video, was released on 28 April 2014. In May 2014, the band released the video for "Europa Geht Durch Mich". The second single from the album, "Futurology", was released 22 September 2014.
The band themselves have stated that this album was very important for celebrating the 20th anniversary of their seminal album The Holy Bible because the band said that after releasing two critically acclaimed albums they now think it was the right time to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the album.
In an interview with Gigwise when asked what influence The Holy Bible had on Futurology, frontman and singer James Dean Bradfield replied: "That we could still trade in a language that is still exclusively ours, that we could still want to write songs that other people are just never going to go near. I just don't think that anyone else would go near that subject matter. We never laid claim to being the most 'original' band, but I think we're unique in that sense."
The Manic Street Preachers have also said that this album is the opposite of last year's Rewind the Film, Futurology, according to the band, is an album full of ideas and one of their most optimistic yet, as Wire said to the NME magazine in an interview: "There's an overriding concept behind 'Futurology' which is to express all the inspiration we get from travel, music and art – all those ideas, do that in a positive way. 'Rewind The Film' was a harrowing 45-year-old looking in the mirror, lyrically. 'Futurology' was very much an album of ideas. It's one of our most optimistic records, the idea that any kind of art can transport you to a different universe."