Manic Street Preachers
‘Journal For Plague Lovers’
(Columbia)

“LIFE CAN ONLY BE UNDERSTOOD BACKWARDS, BUT IT MUST BE LIVED FORWARDS” went the Kierkegaard quote on the sleeve of Manic Street Preachers’ 1999 single ‘The Masses Against The Classes’. It’s a statement you could say the Welsh trio have lived by; whether by choice, or by tragic necessity, they’ve always been a band looking brutally forward, making the announcement last year that their new album would be made up entirely of lyrics left to them by missing member Richey Edwards all the more surprising.

But then, the Manics have made a living out of breaking their own promises and it’s of no little irony that by revisiting the past they’ve made their best album since ‘Everything Must Go’. Rumours of ‘Journal For Plague Lovers’ being little more than ‘The Holy Bible: The Sequel’ are well wide of the mark, too, any echoes of their 1994 masterpiece deliberate; some, like the phaser effect on James Dean Bradfield’s guitar or the compressed ‘til it sounds like he’s in a phonebox-in-hell vocal affectations, subtle, some not-so-subtle – Jenny Saville returning for artwork duties, Steve Albini, the man behind the mixing desk of Richey favourite ‘In Utero’, on production duties.

Richey’s lyrics sound vital, disgusted and heartbreaking – sometimes all at once – and the music’s as urgent and spiky as anything they’ve done for a decade. If ‘Send Away The Tigers’ saw them remembering what a great rock band they are, here they rediscover their wicked streak. ‘Peeled Apples’, ‘Marlon J.D’ , ‘All Is Vanity’ and the title track all seethe with a malevolent, fuzzy stomp, whilst the “Oh Mummy/ What’s a Sex Pistol?” refrain that punctures the centre of ‘Jackie Collins Existential Question Time’’s anthemic riffola is delivered with bilious, black wit, James’ voice barking with righteous indignation in its raging middle-section. ‘Facing Page: Top Left’ and ‘This Joke Sport Severed’, meanwhile, are born from the same beautifully stark melancholia as ‘Small Black Flowers That Grow In The Sky’, raw and achingly emotive. Save for secret track ‘Bag Lady’, the album ends with the plaintive calm of the Nicky-sung ‘William’s Last Words’, Richey’s most human and simplistic lyric saved ‘til last; “Wish me some luck as you wave goodbye to me/You’re the best friends I ever had’.

Freed from the memory, escaped from their history – with a poignant send-off to the past, the Manics re-establish themselves as one of the most important bands of our generation.

Niall Doherty