BLACKWOOD'S finest are back with a greatest hits package, new single, and a winter tour climaxing in the capital ten days before Christmas.

The Manic Street Preachers, still Wales' biggest band, will be celebrating 13 years as one of the UK's most vibrant musical forces.

Their greatest hits package, Forever Delayed, will be released on October 21 on Epic Records.

It will be preceded by the first single in over a year, the title of which has yet to be revealed. The single was recorded in Rockfield Studios over the last few months. The tour will kick off on December 1 in Dublin and reach Cardiff International Arena on December 15, making a total of ten dates.

Former Stone Roses vocalist Ian Brown is the support the entire tour. Brown has his own relationship with Wales. In the Stone Roses he recorded the band's second album in Rockfield Studios and was a regular sight at the bar in TJ's in the late 1990s.

A book of exclusive images photographed by the Manics longtime visual accomplice Mitch Ikeda comes out before the tour in the autumn.

Also titled Forever Delayed, it will be published by Vision On and comes out in hardback in October.

Tickets for the CIA gig go on sale tomorrow at 9am, priced £19.50. Dial 029 2022 4488 or surf to www.manics.co.uk for more information.