Thirteen years on or so from their dramatic arrival, the Manic Street Preachers were still masters of making compromise sound uncompromising. Few either would’ve predicted them filling the post Britpop malaise with the anthemic poetry of Everything Must Go, or latterly This Is My Truth, Tell Me Yours, converting existential angst into a public appeal even they seemed to not fully understand. Rather than confer validation, their success made them feel collectively bereft, even further apart from the band’s essence and locked into the ongoing drift which had began with the disappearance of Richey Edwards.
It’s follow up Know Your Enemy bristled with the attitude of a yard dog poked hard with a stick, two projects which they latrer admitted were speculatively soldered into one confusing whole, and few wanted to spend much time with it.
Lifeblood was a conscious retrenchment, both from political with a big ‘P’ songwriting and new millenial experimentation. Instead James Dean Bradfield chose to fall back to more recurring motifs, from the spiritual undertainty caused by their departed bandmate on Cardiff Afterlife, to their disgust with cultural appropriation on Emily.
A wary audience were also it seemed prepared to have them back, single The Love of Richard Nixon almost becoming a surreal number one, however it was left to opener 1985 and I Live to Fall Asleep to map this new, slightly more approachable imprint most faithfully. Now given an expansive reissue treatment, Lifeblood still sounds gloriously flawed, an olive branch with a thorn at exactly the place where you had to grip tighest.
You can read a full review here.
The Voice Of Unreason 