Listening to James Dean Bradfield’s troubled bawl is always an exhausting experience, not least because he can’t resist freighting his music with finger-wagging lyrics. The good news is that there is less sermonising than usual on the Manic Street Preacher frontman’s solo debut, largely due to the absence of Manics lyricist Nicky Wire (the bargain-bin Chomsky pops up on just one track).
Otherwise, though, The Great Western steers a surprisingly orthodox course. Recorded during the Manics’ two year hiatus (they’re due to reconvene in early 2007), the album sees Dean Bradfield dealing in familiar tropes. He’s still belting out those yearning choruses, still straining for breathless high notes slightly beyond his workman’s grunt. Seldom, in fact, can an extracurricular record have cleaved so faithfully to an artist’s day-job: for Manics fans craving a fix, The Great Western is nothing less than the real dope.
For the rest of us, the LP yields the occasional pleasure: ‘That’s No Way To Tell A Lie’, the opening track and lead single, profits from a lavish studio orchestration (there are swirls of xylophones and brass); ‘An English Gentlemen‘and ‘Émigré’ might have slotted comfortably into the Everything Must Go-era songbook.
Nothing here will win over Manics agnostics and you wonder why Dean Bradfield didn’t more fully grasp the opportunity to venture into new territory. As stop-gaps go, however – and  it’s difficult to regard The Great Western as anything but – the album must be judged a qualified triumph.