One of Manic Street Preachers’ great strengths is their willingness to lay down cultural and political signposts, with their songs directing listeners into areas they may have previously missed. The Welsh trio’s new album, Resistance Is Futile – to these ears their finest in a long time – thankfully continues this practice, but also finds room for doubt in these confusing times.

So, Nicky Wire, opening your 13th album with the couplet “people get tired, people get old” is leaving yourself wide open surely?

“Oh yeah,” nods the Manics’ bassist and chief lyricist, “but I think we work best as a band when we are totally honest with ourselves. Sometimes people buy into that, sometimes they don’t. I think time caught up with us – we did 12 albums in 22 years. We put so much energy into Futurology particularly; it was such a lyrically dense and esoteric kind of thing that we needed to free ourselves up.