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At the start of August I blogged about the new single from Manic Street Preachers, the bouncy, populist rock of “(It’s Not War) Just the End of Love”. Soon afterwards we learned that the song’s video was to feature Michael Sheen—he of playing-Tony-Blair fame—and fellow thespian Anna Friel. Now that video has emerged and turns out to be a typically oblique entry to the Manics video canon, the two stars playing a chess pros locked into an intense match—adjudicated by the band members—during which they suddenly become very, very friendly. Unhelpfully the video itself can’t be embedded but it can be found here.
All the “pawn” jokes have been made already, so don’t even think about it. There is an interesting behind the scenes video doing the rounds which in which Nicky Wire, James Dean Bradfield and Sheen talk about the video and its “repressed communist sexual tension”; that old obligatory rock video chestnut. I’ve been fortunate enough to hear the full album Postcards From a Young Man for review elsewhere - no doubt PopMatters will bring an incisive critique of their own to the table before long. The single is released on September 13th; the album a week later.
