*****Whether deservedly cherished by the wider musical fraternity as one of the albums of our time is a subject for debate but at present, there's no doubting its status as the album of 2009.
If in doubt, read the lyrics left behind by missing band member Richey Edwards, absorb the artwork, consider the context in which it was written. There's so much to engage with before even hearing a single note!
When you do press play, you'll be greeted by an incarnation of the band last heard over a decade ago. Urgent, raging, acerbic, 'Peeled Apples' sets the tone for a newly energised Manics. Indeed, lead singer James Dean Bradfield described this track's musical aim as, "...trying to move the air".
I defer to John Niven when considering the lyrics of the chorus:
"Riderless horses on Chomsky's Camelot" - The most famous riderless horse used for US state funerals was Black Jack, whose oil-coloured mane swung in the cold Washington air behind the coffin of John F. Kennedy. Noam Chomsky wrote a savage critique of Kennedy's foreign policy during the Vietnam era entitled 'Rethinking Camelot.' So - military funerals, sacrifices and fallen warriors, Kennedy, Vietnam, geo-politics. All from five words of the chorus of the opening track.Just consider whether any other writer, let alone lyricist, can condense such meaning into so few words?
This innate genius is at the heart of what makes the album a success. It has driven the need to reinvigorate, re-awaken the music. They simply have to do justice to these words.
'Jackie Collins Existential Question Time' is a short, sharp burst of kinetic energy, equal parts The La's and Nirvana (some feat to marry these two influences) and achieved in just under two and a half minutes.
On the next track, we're treated to a raucous stop-start riff and vital 'Everything Must Go' era leanings, yet it's the wit of the lyric, 'Oh the joy, me and Stephen Hawking we laughed/We missed the sex revolution when we failed the physical' that is most striking.
Richey has shed his desperate outlook and found a new lightness of touch. Simon Price, in his review for 'The Independent', acclaims this new found pathos, "Wanna know what's really scary? On this evidence, Richey Edwards was actually improving."
As a consequence, this album, although toted as a follow up to 'The Holy Bible', doesn't try to mimic the magnesium white burn of their magnum opus. Instead it finds it's own identity, where a more expansive melody is allowed to resonate.
Nowhere is this new rhetoric more evident than in the line 'It's the facts of life sunshine' from the track 'All Is Vanity'. It's an almost Morrissey like wit you can imagine the ex-Smiths front man crooning.
'Pretension/Repulsion' is another Richey treatise on beauty and exploitation and sounds more like a band trying desperately to break through rather than one now two decades into its existence. Infectious and delightful,'Virginia State Epileptic Colony's' piano solo is a welcome surprise and intriguingly juxtaposed to the theme of institutionalised routine.
It's the final track that offers the greatest surprise however. 'Williams Last Words', edited down from a page and a half of prose, will inevitably be looked upon as a form of suicide note. Nicky Wire, not only songwriting, but lending his breathless, Lou Reed vocals, conjures up the most heart wrenching of songs.
String laden, it transcends the meaning of everything the Manics have previously written, simple in its statement, "Isn't it lovely when the dawn brings the dew/I'll be watching over you". Furthermore, perhaps Richey's lasting words will be those of this quite humble wish, "I'd like to go to sleep and wake up happy."
Given the context, given the Manics, surely one of the most beautiful things you'll ever hear.
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