Manic Street Preachers – This Is My Truth, Tell Me Yours 20th Anniversary Edition Review

Mostly forgotten though it is now, the chief controversy that surrounded the original release of the Manic Street Preachers fifth album was whether it told a story of a band selling out. For some of the devoted, even the cover was symbolic of the trio’s moral collapse into some kind of pyjama-clad obsolescence, whereas all it seemed Nicky Wire wanted to concede at the time was an OCD-level habit for vacuuming.

The suggestions were ridiculous of course and time has been both a healer and a cautionary tale; twenty years ago what seemed like a premillennial schism was little more than a whimper relative to what would come next.

This Is My Truth…may largely replace the sneering polemical of Generation Terrorists with a milder sense of grace and austerity, but it’s politics are personal, with James Dean Bradfield’s voice measurably poised. Now re-issued with an entire album’s worth of demos and live out takes, plus a further selection of remixes and b-sides, the expanded version gives a pillow to those who wanted to keep the cult band perspective close to their hearts, whilst for others this is an essential upgrading of what at the time was a torch bearing album for the sane and conscious.

You can read a full review here.