Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	76/100
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic
Clash	8/10
The Daily Telegraph
Drowned in Sound	6/10
The Guardian
The Independent
musicOMH
NME	7/10
Pitchfork Media	7.5/10
Uncut

Postcards from a Young Man is the tenth studio album by Welsh alternative rock band Manic Street Preachers, released on 20 September 2010. The Manics began recording the album (provisionally titled It's Not War – Just the End of Love) in October 2009 at their Faster Studio in Cardiff and finished in June 2010. The album was intended by the band as "one last shot at mass communication".

The album reached the number 3 spot on the UK charts and was supported by the Manics' most extensive tour of the UK to date.

In an interview for NME, Bradfield said "We're going for big radio hits on this one [...] It isn't a follow-up to Journal for Plague Lovers." Nicky Wire has said "We've always been about infiltrating the mainstream. It was a conscious decision this time to want to hear ourselves on the radio. Our mantra at the start was 'If you've got something to say, say it to as many people as possible'." In pre-release interviews Wire also compared the album to the Aerosmith album Pump, saying that "it's going to be an amazing album... Send Away the Tigers was Permanent Vacation; this next one is our Pump."

In July 2009 Wire said that the band's forthcoming album would "be heavy metal Tamla Motown. Van Halen playing The Supremes! I know there's a lot of creativity in us and obviously because I didn't write lyrics on the last record I've got tons of words done." Manics biographer Simon Price reacted to Nicky's announcement with amusement: 'Heavy metal Motown? I’ll believe it when I hear it. That Nicky Wire certainly can talk a good game. The thing is with those three lads is they'll sit around before writing any songs and come up with all these wildly juxtaposing ideas and styles, all of which sound great in theory, but when they actually start working towards them it always comes across sounding very much like a Manics record [...] I remember just before the Lifeblood album came out in 2004 Nicky had been telling me it was going to sound like Goldfrapp-meets-late ’70s era David Bowie. And I could see what he meant, but when I actually heard it just reminded me of a more subdued version of their other stuff. In a good way though. A lot of the time Nicky goes public with these bold statements and then it comes down to it, it's up to James to try and back them up. That's a lot of pressure to put one person under and sometimes I’m positive James is at home half the time going "Oh no, what have you said this time?". '

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