Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	66/100
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic
BBC Music	favourable
Drowned in Sound	9/10
The Guardian
Mojo
NME	6/10
PopMatters	7/10
Q
Uncut
Yahoo! Music UK	6/10

Lifeblood is the seventh studio album by Welsh alternative rock band Manic Street Preachers. Recorded in 2003, it was released on 1 November 2004 by record label Sony Music UK.

The album was met with generally positive reviews from critics, yielding two singles, "The Love of Richard Nixon" and "Empty Souls". The album peaked at number 13 in the UK Album Chart.

The working title of Lifeblood was Litany, hinting that the song "Litany" recorded during the Lifeblood sessions was originally intended for inclusion. The track, however, only featured as a B-side to the "Empty Souls" CD single. The album includes a song about Emily Pankhurst ("Emily"), a leader in the British woman's suffrage movement, but, otherwise, the band's earlier political lyrics have been replaced by personal reflection, such as on the band's past ("1985") and former member Richey Edwards ("Cardiff Afterlife").

Lifeblood was recorded at studios in New York, Wales and Ireland by Tony Visconti, Tom Elmhirst and frequent collaborator Greg Haver. Two tracks recorded – "Antarctic" and "The Soulmates" – remain only on the Japanese version of the album.

The album is a departure musically, replacing the band's traditional guitar walls with more subtle and melodic playing, emphasis instead being given to keyboards and synthesizers. This results in the album being described as pop rock and synthpop sound, something Nicky Wire described the album as "elegiac pop" throughout the recording process.

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Wikipedia