It’s rare that you fall back in love with a band. But the Manics last two albums have managed to do that to me.
Their mid period- a mid life, middle aged spread of polished albums had lost me. I’d still go and see them live where they still had the fire but an album like ‘Lifeblood’ left me confused. I understood why they had to make it but it was not part of my world. It’s not what I bought into the Manics for.
I bought into the manics for rock n roll flash, highly intelligent pop culture lyrics, left wing idealism, poetry and firebrand rock music and suddenly I was getting none of that. It's typical of all bands. Burst in with fire and passion and then slump into contentment. And then last year, somehow, against all the odds, the band seemed to have found their fire again…
They appeared
nearly twenty years ago, firebrand Welsh valley punk rockers who had
just missed the punk rock boat. They were white denim clad, beautiful
homemade rock stars with their DIY cut and paste pop culture clothes and
music. They were enthused and infused art terrorists who promised
everything and sauntered into rock n roll with a unique intelligence.
They broke pretty big and then just after the release of their darkly
bleak classic third ‘Holy Bible’ album they experienced tragedy when
guitarist and key band conceptualist Richey Edwards
disappeared.They then hit the big time with the following album, ‘Everything Must Go’ a record that attempts to come to terms with the shock of Richey’s disappearance with some brilliant song rioting and then disappeared into a weird middle aged morass of terrible clothes and stodgy albums that you listened to hoping for some kind of sign of life. Frontman James vocals still came from somewhere powerful but the songs were almost like Coldplay and we didn’t buy into the Manics for that.
1998’s ‘This Is My Truth Now tell me Yours’ suffered from that and the latter ‘Lifeblood’ was the furthest the band wandered. In-between there was the curveball neo-comeback of 2001’s ‘Know Your Enemy’- a weirdly lo fi workout that had some gems on it but on the surrounding albums they seemed to be wallowing in polished stadium sludge.
And then in
2009 came the news that hey had found a bagful of old Richey lyrics and
had written an album around them and that Steve Albini was going to
produce ‘Journal For plague Lovers’ it was as good as you
expected and for me one of their best albums. Albini’s production really
pulled the raw edge of the band and their innate power was for once
allowed to cut free.The band now had a fire in its belly. Their new album, ‘Postcards From A Young Man’ continues with this theme.
Me and the Manics go back a long way.
Two decades ago it was another day- another cassette.
As one of the main music journalists of the period I was sent constant demos.
This was a good thing.
It made life easy getting the music sent to you. It wasn’t like you had to go and look for the action, it was landing on your doorstep.
Not that they were all great. Lots of them were terrible. But that didn’t matter. There was always going to be a gem in there.
The Manics tape came with a really serious letter- talking in very confident and diffident terms about how the band was going to do what it had to do to destroy the mediocrity of the times. But to be honest what really caught my eye was the band's name, Manic Street Preachers. That’s a great name for a band, a bit like the Screaming Blue Messiahs I thought, a band I had recently given a half page review to for their telecaster driven. Hyperactive, post pub rock assault- genius band.
The Manics sounded leaner and
meaner and that letter was already placing them in some sort of
mythology of rock n roll and they ahd barely even started. They really
had a sense of their own history.The tape was great as well…short, sharp shocks of lipstick smeared punk rock n roll. Who the hell was playing that kind of music in the late eighties? This was the time of E and baggy- a new neo psychedelic age and the Manics dared to go completely against the grain. The songs, of course sounded marvellous because of this with a fierce energy all of their own.
I wrote back to them and eventually got sent their debut single on Damaged Goods records which I wrote about. Then Jeff Barrett, who had set up Heavenly records, said that he was signing the band which was interesting as Jeff was bang in the middle of all that London club scene at the time. Being an old Clash fan he was hooked by the bands Clashisms and decided to release their next single.
I went down to London and interviewed the
band in the back of their van outside Jeff’s office. They had driven up
to London for the day to do the interview and had nowhere to stay. The
rain rattled on the roof of the van as I sat on an amp
surrounded by the band dressed to kill in their best leopard
print and whites, make up on, ready to rock and ready to
talk.I was washed away with a barrage of words and quiet disgust as the band, well, infact Richey manic unleashed their manifesto. Richey talked with a quiet and shy intensity, his kohled eyes and white clothes looking impossibly glam despite the bands obvious poverty. How the hell he managed to walk around the Welsh valleys dressed like that I wondered.
Richey stared at you from behind those kohled eyes and talked with a preposterous intelligence about how the band were going to make one album change the world and split up. He spoke quietly and shyly which belied his diamond hard opinions.
It was a fantastic interview and you just knew that the band had it all worked out before thy got there or that they actually lived this imposable dream. So much better than the usual ‘the music says it all’ grunters. No wonder the Manics got so much press that year. They were such one hundred per cent idealistic believers in the power of rock n roll.
I made the
interview the front cover for Sounds - their first ever front cover and
providing them with a springboard setting them in stone as the band that
were going to try and change the world.Two decades later the new album sees the band remain on that track. Anthemic songs built around Les Pauls with heart rendering strings, high IQ lyrics and soul stirring songs are what we buy into the Manics for. There’s plenty of that here. You don’t buy into the Manics for experimentation,. You buy into them for great songs that touch the soul. Classic British working class rock that has the smarts.
The Manics have found their sound.
Thank fuck.
We are back in love.
John Robb plays with Goldblade at Punk Rock Festival (Madam Geisha & Kuku Club, Brighton) on the 10th of October. A very interesting Festival indeed.
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