‘Gold Against The Soul’ by The Manic Street Preachers

The second by The Manic Street Preachers wandered into my collection more or less by accident. As far as I can remember, I picked it up very cheaply in a sale somewhere around the time of ‘A Design For Life’, gave it a couple of cursory listens, and then ignored it forever. As a result, I’m listening properly now for more or less the first time. The surprise, for me at least, is how accessible quite a lot of it is. ‘La Tristesse Durera’ and ‘Roses In The Hospital’ especially are well written and orchestrated pop songs. Ironically, the band themselves dislike the album because of this approach, considering it some kind of corporate sell-out. Perhaps they’re right, but I’d rather listen to these tracks than the louder, angrier sounds of ‘Nostalgic Pushead’ or ‘Symphony of Tourette’.

It’s not an album I’m going to spend lots of time listening to – along this big listening process, I’ve confirmed to myself that I’m really not that fond of the Manics, but it has its qualities.

‘Everything Must Go’ by the Manic Street Preachers

Here’s an album that lurks away in the collection, largely ignored, possibly misunderstood. In all honesty, it’s there because of peer pressure. Not heavy-handed actual peer pressure – no-one forced me to buy it, but the kind of ‘everyone says it’s good, so it must be’ kind of peer pressure that makes you buy records as a teenager. Thankfully, I’d passed out of that stage by the time the Stereophonics came along, or I’d have to suffer them to.

I say, suffer, but that’s not really what I mean at all. ‘Everything Must Go’ is fine. It has some really good bits: ‘A Design For Life’ is as good as it ever was, the perfect combination of the written song and the great arrangement, that bit where the strings and the guitar play out the instrumental break together is spine-tingling. And there are other good bits to. ‘Elvis Impersonator’ is a good mix of sparse opening and heavy conclusion, ‘Kevin Carter’ and ‘Removables’ bounce along nicely, and ‘Small Black Flowers That Grow In The Sky’ is the sort of delicate song the Manics don’t do nearly as often as they should. Elsewhere, however, the album feels slightly oppressive. I think it’s mostly down to James Dean Bradfield’s voice, which is great in the songs I’ve just said I liked, but hard to listen to during the louder tracks. He has a real habit of writing melodies that sound like they’re just too high for his voice to reach, giving the songs a sense of strain that doesn’t do them any favours.

A decade and a half on, the Manics are still going, though to a much-dwindled group of people who are interesting. They’re generally considered a band who’s best days are behind them, and most would consider this to have been the high point of those days. True enough, it stands up fine, and has plenty going for it, but it doesn’t feel like the classic it was portrayed as at the time.