Journal For A Plagued Manics Lover

It was nearly six months ago that I blogged about the Manics making an album that would use Richey Edwards’ lyrics. I was hopeful – very hopeful – that it would turn out ok and, having lived with the very-Richey-titled ‘Journal For Plague Lovers’ for over a week now, I’m pleased to say my hope wasn’t misplaced – it’s the Manics best album since ‘Everything Must Go’.

It make might sense to pigeonhole ‘Journal For Plague Lovers’ as a sequel to ‘The Holy Bible’ due to Richey’s lyrics being involved but, in reality, its songs have signposts to all different eras of Manics back catalogue. Indeed, one of the best things about ‘Journal…’ is that its sent me scouring through my iPod to re-listen to their back catalogue; there’s some daft songs on ‘Generation Terrorists’, their debut, but ‘You Love Us’, ‘Stay Beautiful’ and ‘Motorcycle Emptiness’ are warnings that they could make arena-filling aceness, ‘Gold Against The Soul’ standout ‘From Despair To Where’ is the sort of big-chorused, major-chorded anguish rock they’d revisit 15 years later on ‘Send Away The Tigers’ whilst ‘The Holy Bible’ and ‘Everything Must Go‘ just contain too many moments of genius to fit it into one blog, but i’ll try; ‘Faster’ and ‘A Design For Life’ and ‘Kevin Carter’ and ‘Of Walking Abortion’ and ‘Small Black Flowers That Grow In The Sky’ and ‘Mausoleum’ and ‘No Surface All Feeling’ – these are among the best songs i’ve ever heard.

One byproduct of ‘Journal…’, though, is that I’m starting to look back on 2001’s ‘Know Your Enemy’ (at 16 tracks plus a secret track, waaay too long – ‘Freedom Of Speech Won’t Feed My Children’ is a brilliant last track, but not worth waiting that long for) and 2004’s ‘Lifeblood’ as minor lulls in a career that’s littered with highpoints. For a band who’ve excelled in backing up stellar singles with filler-less albums to lose yourself in, revisiting those two records is a surprisingly fleeting journey – indeed, only ‘Freedom Of Speech…’, ‘Found That Soul’ and ‘Dead Martyrs’ from ‘Know Your Enemy’ and ‘To Repel Ghosts’, ‘Always/Never’ and ‘Solitude Sometimes Is’ from ‘Lifeblood’ have the vital, visceral urgency that characterises all great Manics songs. It might even be possible to pinpoint the second half of ‘This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours’ as where they began to lose their way slightly – after ‘My Little Empire’, it takes a bit of a nosedive.

But with 2007’s ‘Send Away The Tigers’ – the FM crunch of which might have been very soft rock in places, but GOOD soft rock – and now ‘Journal For Plague Lovers’ scoring high on the Manicsometer, the Manics are showing that they’re still one of the country’s biggest bands on current form, rather than reputation. The mind-blowing aceness of both ‘The Holy Bible’ and ‘Everything Must Go’ probably ensured that they’d be safe to play Brixton Academy-ish sized venues for as long as they’d want, but the Manics have always done things by merit and, just over 17 years since the release of their debut, they’re as viciously relevant as ever.