Resistance Is Futile', the band's 13th studio album, heralds a return to a classic Manics sound described by the band as "widescreen melancholia". The songs on the album are the first recorded in the band's new Door to the River studio (near Newport). Of their first new recordings in four years, the band said: "The main themes of 'Resistance is Futile' are memory and loss; forgotten history; confused reality and art as a hiding place and inspiration. It's obsessively melodic - in many ways referencing both the naive energy of 'Generation Terrorists' and the orchestral sweep of 'Everything Must Go'. After delay and difficulties getting started, the record has come together really quickly over the last few months through a surge of creativity and some old school hard work."