Singles Round-Up - W/C 28/2/11 (Single)

And so, it is that time of the week again. The time when we realise to our massive chagrin that the fleeting ecstasy of the weekend is once again fizzling out and in a matter of hours we will be back out into the grey misery of Monday morning for another week of toil and drudge. But fear not! Because although God might take our weekend every Monday with his left hand, at the same time he gives us new singles with his right hand! And butter my arse, there’s some real crackers this week.

Manic Street Preachers
Postcards From a Young Man

I expend on average about a thousand words a year telling Muso’s Guide readers exactly why Manic Street Preachers are the most important band ever, so let me warn you, you shouldn’t expect balance from me on this subject. Postcards is one of the highlights of the album of the same name, and it’s a glorious throwback to the late 1990s when the band shifted records by the shitload. It’s a swaying, swooning slice of enormous guitar pop, on which James Dean Bradfield sounds more energised than he has in years, in spite of (or perhaps because of) the slightly bitter nostalgic bent of the Wire’s lyrics. It’s quite obviously single of the week, but then I would say that, wouldn’t I?

Elbow
Neat Little Rows

Everyone likes Elbow these days don’t they? They’re like a band of Dave Grohls, a bunch of proper decent pub blokes, who also happen to make brilliant records. Neat Little Rows sounds pretty much exactly how you would expect an Elbow lead single to sound. It doesn’t start off like that, though, because for the first minute you’re a bit concerned that they couldn’t come up with their own song and instead have decided to completely plagiarise Zebra by Beach House, but then the piano starts twinkling and Garvey’s whiskied howl cranks up a gear and you’re back in the safe and comforting heartland of classic Elbow. Neat Little Rows may not be in any way surprising, but its predictability takes nothing away from how nice it is to have Elbow back.

Crocodiles
Mirrors

Sleep Forever was, for me, one of 2010’s finest albums but it never quite seemed to get the universal adulation that it deserved. Exactly why Crocodiles feel the need to release opening track Mirrors now eludes me, but screw it, it’s a brilliant song which calls to mind the best moments of The Secret Machines’ early career. It’s about the pinnacle of Crocodiles’ noise-gaze endeavours, easing its way in gently with a hypnotic, snaking melody ushering in the crunching chords which carry off the rest of the song into a sea of beautiful echoey confusion. Massively enjoyable stuff.

Belle and Sebastian
I Want the World to Stop

In exactly the same way that you know exactly what to expect from an Elbow single, B&S have long since ceased to surprise us when they knock out a lovely single. They are are one of indieland’s great comforting constants, and unless you’re made of granite, their deftness with an upbeat melody should be sufficient to lift you out of a miserable Monday mood. Typically, I Want the World to Stop is a beautifully crafted sliver of chirpy pop, which sees Stuart pondering “sheets of milky winter disorder” and a “grey adorable city by the docks”, and still making the whole thing sound utterly idyllic.

Dutch Uncles
Face In

I’ll be honest, this is my first experience of Dutch Uncles. It’s pretty nice, all told. I won’t pretend not to be a smidge disturbed by the chap in the wedding dress in the video, but hey, his guests seem to be enjoying themselves by the end. The song is another bit of sugary indie pop fun, and although this particular week there’s a danger of it being overshadowed by the titans of the genre, the nagging catchiness of the chorus sees it alright. Face In is a great example the type of pop music that is one of the few things we Englishers do better than anybody else in the world.

Those Dancing Days
Can’t Find Entrance

Well, we might as well finish off with more twee pop since that’s the route the singles schedulers seem to be taking us this week. Those Dancing Days have become consummate pros in the field, and I can give you a sneaky exclusive that their new album is excellent. Can’t Find Entrance is pretty representative of the breakneck speed at which the whole thing proceeds, rattling by in a blur of guitar, organ and little-girl lost vocals. In another week, this might have been single of the week, but, well, I’d already given that to the Manics before I’d even seen what other singles were out.

Manic Street Preachers - Postcards From a Young Man (Album)

A little over a year ago, when on these very pages I covered Journal For Plague Lovers, an album which saw Manic Street Preachers triumphantly rugby-tackling their personal history, I pondered whether 2009 would be a fitting time for their unfeasibly epic story to end. At the time, my logic seemed fairly sound. The act of bringing the last of Richey’s abandoned words into public consciousness after fourteen years had an undeniable air of finality to it, leaving the band with something of an unenviable dilemma as to how they would follow up such an album. But of course I’m forgetting that the Manics have always been contrary bastards who have spent more than twenty years being perfectly happy to do exactly the opposite of what you might expect. Therefore, the release of Postcards From a Young Man sees them emerging from the shadow of Richey’s ghost for a second time, and in exactly the same manner as they did in 1996, with an album which is brazen in its radio-conquering ambitions. The circumstances surrounding the two records, however, are entirely different. Where Everything Must Go displayed a defiant sense of optimism borne out of tragedy, wrapping it up in bombast and saturating it with strings, Postcards From a Young Man finds a band at an altogether more settled stage in their lives, crucially no longer needing to escape from their history. In spite of the clear differences surrounding their inception though, both records share the same sense of rejuvenation, a feeling that the band are no longer weighed down by the burden of expectation, and able to make a record just for the enjoyment of it.

In a recent press missive, James described the album as “one last shot at mass communication”, and, regardless of how tongue in cheek his sentiments may be, it’s easy to see what he means. Postcards can most definitely be considered a pop album in the sense that it is unmistakably front-loaded, and that it contains three or four absolutely killer singles which stand head and shoulders above much of the rest of it. Following on from the archetypal lead-single stylings of opening track ‘(It’s Not War) Just the End of Love’ is the album’s title track, which amounts to the most perfect distillation yet of what the band have been trying to achieve musically and lyrically for nigh on fifteen years, as Nicky laments the sting of seeing your youth drift away (“This life, it sucks your principles away”) while James engulfs his words in swooning, sweeping guitar. Even grander is the Ian McCulloch duet ‘Some Kind of Nothingness’. The song is enormous in scale, coming across like some Spector/Walker Brothers hybrid on which McCulloch’s magnificently jaded delivery is supported by an uncharacteristically benevolent-sounding vocal from James. Towards the end the whole thing swells to improbable levels of grandeur when the gospel choirs kick in, to such an extent that it really should all be too much, but the song is so gorgeous that it is impossible not to get caught up in its waves of joyous sadness.

Its first three songs are Postcards From a Young Man’s undoubted high points, before it begins to settle in a little, but every now and again it revisits the stateliness of its beginnings. ‘Hazelton Avenue’, for instance, sees an unlikely ode to the simple pleasures of consumerism (would anyone have seen that coming in 1992?) wrapped in an elegant, swirling refrain, while ‘Golden Platitudes’ comes off like a more grandiose version of the MOR pop of Lifeblood, with the massively uplifting musical accompaniment offsetting a song tinged with the sadness of being betrayed by your own political party (and possibly also by your own failing ideals): “What happened to those days when everything seemed possible... Where did the feeling go? Where did it all go wrong?”

Although they are clearly its most recognisable and memorable facets, the happy/sad big guitar pop numbers don’t quite tell the full story of Postcards. There are also occasional blasts of the characteristic anger which clearly still lingers in the 40-something version of Manic Street Preachers, aimed at targets both old (The decline of national industry, and with it, national identity) and new (Wire’s distaste for the blogger culture which means that anybody with a keyboard can now dispense the same kind of bile which he has spent years honing, to the point that “the printed world is all done and dusted”.) Truth be told though, for all that the angrier songs are bracing, with the rattling chorus of ‘A Billion Balconies Facing the Sun’ a standout example, they are ultimately a little bit throwaway, and at times feel just a little bit redundant. Not quite to the same extent as the likes of ‘Underdogs’ on Send Away the Tigers, mind you, but still they never quite seem to rise above the status of being decent rock knockabouts.

Really, Postcards From a Young Man can not be considered to be a logical follow-on from its predecessor. In spite of the relatively short period of time between the two, the parallels are fleeting, and only the paranoid, tetchy ‘Auto-Intoxication’ would come close to fitting comfortably on Journal For Plague Lovers. We only really see one direct reference to the emotional impact of creating Journal, but it is a telling one when on ‘The Descent (Pages 1 and 2)’, James sings “I’ve lost my last defence / The pages that you left”. Finally committing the last of Richey’s words to wax has left the band exposed, and without the safety buffer they have enjoyed all these years, which might explain the gusto and defiance with which they have attacked this project. While they have undoubtedly recorded better albums than this, they have also recorded much worse too, and there are moments on here which prove they can still genuinely surprise even me, a hardened Manics fan of some thirteen-odd years, with their passion and skill. The long and short of it is that Postcards From a Young Man is a microcosm of the band’s career, rich in glorious successes, pitted with the occasional mis-step, often contradictory, but ultimately completely life-affirming.

Manic Street Preachers - Journal For Plague Lovers (Album)

My two penn'oth on my favourite album of this year for Muso's Guide's impending Top 50 Countdown.

The prospect of Manic Street Preachers finally recording Richey’s last lyrics was both mouth-watering and terrifying. This weighty task had dogged them for fourteen years, what if it proved too great? Such trepidation seems foolish, even insulting, now. The process of finally exorcising their ghosts triggered a catharsis, as the band delivered one of their best albums yet, sounding more alive than they have in years. James’ delivery and guitar work, in particular often reached his high watermark of 1994. The songs were typically dense and occasionally harrowing, but they also contained odd flickers of the mordant humour that has long since been written out of Richey’s history. There’s also a real tenderness present in Nicky’s heartrendingly flat vocals on ‘William’s Last Words’, a strength always possessed by the Manics, but rarely fully appreciated. With Journal For Plague Lovers, the Manics have enhanced Richey’s legacy, when they could easily have harmed it.

The Albums of the Year - Part Two

Reasonably assured that no albums released in the next six weeks will have sufficient impact on me to be counted in the year's upper echelon, and after much painful deliberation, I've settled on the following as my top ten records of 2009. In reverse order, in time-honoured blog-countdown style, naturally...

10: Dirty Projectors - Bitte Orca
It is delightfully weird, sounding like the chirruping of some demented bird, and the songs are undeniably glorious. I couldn't stop listening to this for weeks after it was released.

9: The XX - XX
The undoubted hype record of the year, and the backlash inevitably started soon after release. However, there's a reason for the hype. With minimal ingredients and maximum precision, the Cockney teenagers were able to summon levels of black drama on a par with Interpol and The National.

8: The Horrors - Primary Colours
This received similar hype to The XX, and largely because of the surprise element. Nobody expected these immaculately coiffed ex-NME darlings to produce something so searing, and deep. Yes, it's very derivative, but this doesn't stop it being a fantastically well-realised piece of work.

7: Jason Lytle - Yours Truly, The Commuter
Grandaddy never received the Pavement-sized recognition they deserved in their lifetime, and this record hasn't pushed Lytle to untouchable status like Malkmus, but it should have. It's a gorgeous piece of bruised songcraft. The warmth Lytle is still able to conjure up is awe-inspiring.

6: Bat For Lashes - Two Suns
Fur and Gold was rightly lauded and this is leaps and bounds ahead of even that. On this record, Natasha Khan has gone from simple singer-songwriter to someone producing high art. Her voice is better than ever, and the Scott Walker duet is spine-tingling.

5: Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavillion
The first great record of 2009, and the point at which some people stopped considering other albums for the top prize of the year. It was massively (and predictably) hyped in indie circles, and (even more predictably) panned by the backlash brigade, but it is brilliant. Panda Bear's increased influence has smoothed off some of AC's more abrasive edges without blunting their creativity.

4: Fuck Buttons - Tarot Sport
Had this been released later in the year it would probably have been even higher. Another artist to have shown incredible progression from an already strong debut. The noise and menace is still there, but the harshness has been buffed out in place of something more mesmeric, but no less beguiling.

3: Wild Beasts - Two Dancers
Speaking of massive progress... Little to say on this other than that it is jaw-dropping stuff. Incredible maturity and depth to their sound that you wonder if they can ever top this.

2: The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
The band with the worst name of the year ironically nearly produce the best album. It distills all the good points about shoegaze and twee 90s indie pop, compressing them into a near perfect half hour or so. A record which becomes more and more addictive with every listen, and what is even more pleasing is the fact that the recent Higher Than the Stars EP contains songs that are arguably even better.

1: Manic Street Preachers - Journal For Plague Lovers
It's impossible for me to judge this record objectively, given that the Manics have always meant more to me than any other band. I awaited this album with real excitement, but also an equal measure of trepidation. I mean, what if they hadn't been able to live up to Richey's lyrics? I did them a real disservice though. After 20-odd years of friendship and 14 years of wrestling with his ghost, of course they understood the grandeur of their task, and of course they were able to do it justice, The entire band sound absolutely revitalised, meaning that I'm in two minds about whether now is the right time to end their story, or whether they should work with this newly rediscovered passion to make more awesome records.

So all things considered, 2009 has been a great year for new music. Fingers crossed for 2010...

My first gig - Manic Street Preachers (Gig)

As a band who shaped my musical upbringing more than any other have so far, it's quite fitting that my first gig happened to be Manic Street Preachers in December 1998. It's probably not a tour that will go down as a classic chapter in Manics history. They were touring This is My Truth, which as much as I like it, isn't their most thrilling of records, and it also saw Nicky's brief, inexplicable, and ill-fated experiment with a skipping rope. As well as that, it was in Newcastle's cavernous, echoey Metro Radio Arena (or Telewest Arena as it was then). But, in spite of the odds against it, the gig was an electrifying experience. Even now, some ten and a half years, and three stones later, I still get goosebumps whenever I hear live recordings of You Love Us or A Design For Life, and it's because of that night. It cemented my love for the Manics, and made sure that for better or worse, I'll always be a hopeless fanboy.

Manic Street Preachers - Flawed, Contradictory and The Most Significant Band of Our Generation (Feature)

"We’ll release one double album that goes to Number One worldwide. One album, then we split. If it doesn't work, we split anyway. Either way, after one album, we're finished"

So claimed James Dean Bradfield in 1992. And at every available opportunity, the band repeated this laudable intention to anyone who would listen. And to a lot of people who wouldn’t. But, 17 years later the Manics are about to release their ninth album. Clearly, the boys from Blackwood were always the contradictory types.

But if they split tomorrow, they wouldn’t just be leaving behind nine bits of round plastic. They would be leaving behind a legacy greater than perhaps any band in the last 25 years. ‘Life-changing’ is a term which is grossly over-used, but it is an incontrovertible fact that the Manics have positively influenced the thoughts, tastes and values of thousands of people.

Erupting onto the music scene at the start of the 1990s, they accurately described themselves as “a mess of eyeliner and spraypaint”. They were a dream come true for the music press. Four rent-a-gobs from a Welsh backwoods (sorry, Blackwood), they looked fantastic, and hated everything from Slowdive to Smash Hits to Glastonbury and everything in between. It was almost irrelevant what they actually sounded like.

As it happened, their debut album Generation Terrorists stood up well. It was everything they promised it would be: Intelligent, caustic, and it saw James Dean Bradfield attempting to ‘out-Slash Slash’ at every possible opportunity. Many of their most iconic moments were on there, including ‘You Love Us’ and ‘Motorcycle Emptiness’. That the album was a touch overproduced and plagued by filler in the form of a pointless cover and a horrific remix of ‘Repeat’ is hardly important, merely misplaced ambition.

Whether they ever really planned to split after the first record or not, alas they inevitably came back with Gold Against the Soul just over a year after releasing their debut. At this point, if the wheels didn’t quite come off, they certainly wobbled a fair bit.

Against all odds, Wales’ most idealistic firebrands fell into the corporate trap. Encouraged to make a radio friendly album of modern rock, they and producer Dave Eringa polished the record to within an inch of its life. The end product was something which would very quickly sound dated. In spite of this, scrape away some of the sheen, and some classic Manic moments reveal themselves. Although their political edge had been blunted, there was a clear sign of evolution in their lyrical themes. The sloganeering polemic was making way for topics such as the neglect of war veterans, corrupt record company types and a macabre look at Tourette‘s-afflicted children. We also saw some of the first indications here that Richey‘s mental state was beginning to fray: “There’s nothing nice in my head / The adult world took it all away”.

To their immense credit, the Manics were intelligent enough to realise they were heading down the wrong path with their foray into radio rock. So, in an effort to recapture their discipline and focus, they covered themselves from head to toe into military paraphernalia and unleashed what will forever be their greatest achievement, The Holy Bible. It was a disturbing, abrasive record, summed up best by the JG Ballard quote at the start of ‘Faster’: “I wanted to rub the human face in its own vomit, and force it to look in the mirror’”. Richey’s increasingly unravelling mental health brought about his densest, most incredible poetry. James rose magnificently to the challenge of setting this to music, half-killing himself at times to fit in lines like “Holding you but I only miss these things when they leave” over his brutal riffage.

Six months after The Holy Bible was released, the world got too much for Richey and, as we all know, he chose to disappear without trace. Whether he jumped in the Severn, or decided to anonymously start his life again elsewhere, we don’t know. Nowadays, I genuinely don’t know what I believe. The idealistic sixteen year old I once was would tell you in no uncertain terms that he is alive, and hiding away from the world that crushed him.

But in spite of his vitriolic tendencies, by all accounts Richey is/was a loving man who cared more about his friends and family than anything else. Could he just disappear into thin air like that, cutting them off without any kind of goodbye? But then suicide is an even more selfish act, as the mental anguish is entirely with the surviving family, and not shared by the one who runs away, so what to think? The horrible fact is that we (and more to the point, his loved ones) won’t know the truth until Richey surfaces, one way or another.

With all this on their minds, it’s astonishing that the remaining three members were able to release their fourth album Everything Must Go just over a year after his last sighting. What is all the more incredible is that the record is not the depressing feast of wallowing the Manics were entitled to make. Instead, it was an uplifting, string-soaked work, replete with lyrical diversity and dignity. Five of the album’s twelve tracks were written in full or part by Richey, but it is Nicky’s efforts which were arguably the most memorable. Songs like ‘A Design For Life’ and the album’s title track showed Nicky stepping out of Richey’s shadow as a writer. He was in turn able to pay tender tributes to his friend and acerbically mock the world’s perception of the working class condition.

Everything Must Go had made the Manics ‘properly’ famous, but their fifth album This is My Truth Tell Me Yours finally garnered them their first ever number one single with ‘If You Tolerate This Your Children Will be Next’. This album was a far more downbeat effort than its predecessors. It was the sound of a band jaded by all they had experienced in the seven years since their first record.

Choosing to follow Everything Must Go with an album so steeped in inertia and a very adult sense of angst was also the clearest indication to date that the Manics were never going to sound like the same band they were with Richey. And rightly so. However maligned this record eventually became, it’s still a strong piece of work, infinitely preferable to a lot of what followed it. One thing Manic Street Preachers have always been is an honest band. True to this, This is My Truth is an album which sees them at their most world-weary.

But what the hell their mood was like when they recorded Know Your Enemy will always escape me. It was described by Nicky Wire at the time as ‘one of the best albums of all time’. It wasn’t. They may have tried their hand at everything including, but not limited, to disco, rock ‘n’ roll, jangly pop and raucous punk, but its eclecticism was to prove its downfall. There were some decent moments on the album, such as ‘Intravenous Agnostic’s arse-kicking guitar and the touching sentiment of ‘Ocean Spray’, but Know Your Enemy will go down in most people’s books as Manic Street Preachers worst album.

However, some people would award that dubious accolade to 2004’s Lifeblood. I would disagree. Like This is My Truth, Lifeblood suffered in the public’s eyes for being a subtler affair, more keyboards than power chords. It was a laid-back, melody-soaked effort, and to me showed that the Manics were freer than ever of the fear of what Richey would think of it. Perhaps it’s down to the fact that this was their seventh record, and meant they had made more albums without Richey than they had with him.

Not that they had forgotten him entirely, they weren’t that crass. Album opener ‘1985’ refers to Nicky’s musical awakening at the feet of Morrissey and Marr, a period in his life of which Richey was very much a part (as well as James and Sean). Final track ‘Cardiff Afterlife’ is another of Nicky’s poignant eulogies to Richey: “Your memory is still mine / No I will not share them”.

Perhaps bruised by the harshly indifferent reaction of the record-buying public to Lifeblood, the band decided to go back to a formula which had brought them previous sucess with their next album Send Away the Tigers. They appeared to take the blue print of Everything Must Go, and mixed stadium-rocking power melodies with meaty power chords and threw in some endless solos for good measure.

It was refreshing to hear the Manics in this kind of setting again, and ‘Indian Summer‘ and ‘The Second Great Depression‘ were up their with their best efforts. However, perhaps for the first time ever, the ugly spectre of self-parody reared its head, particularly on Underdogs with its “This one’s for the freaks” refrain. Far be it from me to accuse the Manics of cynicism, I’ve already said they’re too genuine for that. As James sang on ‘An English Gentleman’ on his solo album, “There are no lies / It’s just the way we feel today”. That said, the album as a whole didn’t quite sit right with me.

So, finding themselves at yet another crossroads, the Manics decided that the time was finally right to blow the dust off Richey’s lyrical legacy, recording Journal For Plague Lovers entirely with words left behind in his notebooks. Words intended to appear on the fourth Manic Street Preachers record finally see the light of day on their ninth, a full fourteen years after Richey’s disappearance. I won’t dwell too much on this record, because I’ve already documented my thoughts in detail here but I will say this: Journal For Plague Lovers is the best Manics album for years. Perhaps even since The Holy Bible. And, in my view it is a fitting place to end the career of one of the most sincere, intelligent, and human bands we’ll ever have.

Forever Replayed - A more fitting retelling of Manic Street Preachers history than Sony’s 2004 cash-in - Spotify Playlist

1 Everything Must Go - Everything Must Go
2 Archives of Pain - The Holy Bible
3 Sepia - Kevin Carter Single
4 Stay Beautiful - Generation Terrorists
5 Motown Junk - Motown Junk Single
6 This is Yesterday - The Holy Bible
7 From Despair to Where - Gold Against the Soul
8 Prologue to History - If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next Single
9 1985 - Lifeblood
10 No Surface All Feeling - Everything Must Go
11 You Love Us - Generation Terrorists
12 Ready For Drowning - This is My Truth Tell Me Yours
13 Faster - The Holy Bible
14 Sleepflower - Gold Against the Soul
15 Indian Summer - Send Away the Tigers
16 Bored Out of My Mind - Motorcycle Emptiness Single
17 The Masses Against the Classes - The Masses Against the Classes Single
18 Yes - The Holy Bible
19 PCP - The Holy Bible
20 A Design For Life - Everything Must Go

Manic Street Preachers - Journal For Plague Lovers (Album)

It’s now 14 years since Richey Edwards disappeared, and in that time Manic Street Preachers have become a very different band indeed. Mondeo-man aside, most Manics fans would accept they have never hit the creative heights without him that they did with him. So, the news that Journal For Plague Lovers would be recorded with lyrics left behind by Richey has created more anticipation than a band’s ninth album has any right to.

Having managed to sit on these notebooks for so long, the dilemma must have burned constantly in James, Nicky and Sean’s minds: When, and indeed, if, they should ever commit these to tape. Why they decided to wait so long is unclear. Regardless of the answer to this, one thing is clear. They have managed to sidestep the biggest banana skin in their path since Everything Must Go, and delivered their best album in years.

What they have presented to us is, unsurprisingly, a far cry from the “Pantera meets Screamadelica and Linton Kwesi Johnson” direction Richey suggested. (There’s a reason he had little to no musical input in the band). Instead, Journal For Plague Lovers is a blend of the sounds cultivated on Gold Against the Soul, Everything Must Go, and, yes, The Holy Bible.

James Dean Bradfield’s ability to make even the most unworkable of poetry into a memorable rock song has always been something which sets the Manics apart from the crowd. The Holy Bible demonstrated his ability to pick the most appropriate musical tone, and as a result, the album was as much a triumph for him as it was for Edwards. Journal For Plague Lovers is a similar story. At times the album is classic euphoric Manic vitriol, at others it is edgy, tense and disturbing. Steve Albini also deserves major credit for the way his production has freed the band of some of the stodgy bloatedness which has dogged them on occasion in the past.

As expected, the lyrical content is sometimes unnervingly dark. ‘Doors Slowly Closing’ is the apex of gloom. The song has previously been described by Nicky as ‘total Ian Curtis’, and cited as an example of Richey’s state of mind around the time of his departure. It is dense and disturbing, features lines like “Crucifixion is the easy life” and is set to an appropriately sombre musical background.

Many of Edwards’ classic lyrical traits are present on the album. On ‘She Bathed Herself in a Bath of Bleach’ (A contender for ‘Bleakest Title of the Year 09‘), James sings “She’d walk on broken glass for love…Love bathed her in a bath of bleach”. And for all Richey’s mind was unravelling, he could still deliver his characteristically concise and unfathomable, lyrical couplets, such as “Riderless horses on Chomsky’s Camelot” on ‘Peeled Apples’.

The song which is most likely to be discussed on Manics message boards for years to come is ‘William’s Last Words’. It’s the Manics fanboy’s wet dream, reading like Richey’s long-awaited goodbye note, “Wish me some luck / As you wave goodbye to me / You’re the best friends I ever had”. In actual fact, the lyric was edited down by Nicky from a piece of prose left by Richey. As James has recently pointed out, someone as sensitive and smart as Richey wouldn’t be so crass as to leave behind such as thinly veiled clue about his plans to disappear. In spite of this, the context renders it impossible to be anything but choked by Nicky’s flat but heartbreakingly tender delivery.

So, the stakes were so high that Journal For Plague Lovers had to be something special. Mercifully, it is. It’s not The Holy Bible Mk II, which is a big factor in its success. It’s the sound of a band who are older, wiser and more likeable than the firebrands who promised to break up after one album. However, they’ve shown us that after all they’ve been through, they are still in touch with their roots. But how the hell do they follow this up? And, more to the point, should they?