rebellious jukebox: manic street preachers holy bible

This is the Manic Street Preacher\’s masterpiece. I know a lot of people may prefer the work that came after Richey disappeared and Everything Must Go is a great album — even the ones after that have some winning moments. But this represents a crystallisation of all their concerns lyrically and musically that they have not really attained since. It is a relentless album; at the total opposite end of the spectrum to something that might be labeled easy listening. This proves, more than the words he carved into his arm, that Richey and the Manics were for real.

It came out at a time when the Blur Vs. Oasis battle was just starting to warm up. The Manics always stood on their own; something of an oddity perhaps. From the Jenny Saville painting on the front to the Octave Mirbeau quote on the back of this album was a total package — everything hits the right note. This was their apex and in some ways it is really the last true Manic Street Preachers album. There seems to have been a slow cooling of their inner fire and a slide into making safer and safer music. Valerie Solanas, child abuse, anorexia, serial killers, atrocity — it all finds its place on this album, and it all works lyrically, and those lyrics are dense and full of ideas, set in an angular aggressive stab of shiny music that has definitely withstood the decade that stands between then and now.

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Now playing: Manic Street Preachers – Archives of Pain
via FoxyTunes