If I could just get the stupid thing to build

Manic Street Preachers new album

Anyone that knows me wouldn't be surprised to learn that I identify with (and still love) Richy Edwards of the Manic Street Preachers. Richey has been missing for 14 years now but his lyrics live on, particularly in the Manics greatest work "The Holy Bible". I'd heard rumours last year that the manics were going to make a record similar to THB but I snorted with derision given that Richey couldn't be part of it. Well surprise, surprise, they have made the album and using lyrics that Richey wrote but which were never recorded. I've heard the opening track "Peeled Apples" and it's very, very good, very reminiscent of THB. It's kind of amazing that James Dean Bradfield (singer and lifeforce of the Manics) still has it in him to sound so very, very angry :o)

The album is called "Journal for Plague Lovers" and is released on May 18th. Track listing is:

Peeled Apples
Jackie Collins Existential Question Time
Me and Stephen Hawking
This Joke Sport Severed
Journal For Plague Lovers
She Bathed Herself In A Bath Of Bleach
Facing Page: Top Left
Marlon J.D.
Doors Closing Slowly
All Is Vanity
Pretension/Repulsion
Virginia State Epileptic Colony
William’s Last Words

I have real hope that this will be the album that they would have recorded after The Holy Bible if Richey had still been with them. Because of this I've booked tickets to see them on May 28th May at the Roundhouse in London in the hope that I'll love the album and that at the gig they'll play a mix of tracks from the new one and from THB and maybe for once not play the tedious track they seem to be most famous for "A Design for Life".

I actually saw Hawkwind at the Roundhouse believe it or not, I was very young and lived in Camden Town. So going back there will be a blast. I'm also going to see Andrew Bird at the Thekla in Bristol with my Friend Michelle on the 10th May.

4Real

Posted at 02:52PM Mar 27, 2009 by MandyWaite in Personal  |  Comments[2]