MANIC STREET PREACHERS
Lifeblood
Epic
· The band once known as Betty Blue issue their latest, three years on from Know Your Enemy.
Lifeblood finds the Manic Street Preachers in mid-life crisis. The band reinvented themselves from nihilistic Brit Guns N’ Roses acolytes into a truly great rock band after the 1995 disappearance of guitarist Richey James. Now, as the grandeur turns to polish, "I Live to Fall Asleep" tries to determine where it all went wrong, asking, "When did you become another distant friend?" echoed by "When did life get so complicated?" on "Glasnost." Album opener "1985" inadvertently defines the album’s sound. The Manics end up sounding like a well-read Duran Duran while extolling Morrissey and Johnny Marr. Only "The Love of Richard Nixon" (which accomplishes in three-and-a-half minutes what Oliver Stone took three hours to say) and "Cardiff Afterlife" rise above the sheen. The latter, a comment on James’s loss, recovers the Manic Street Preachers knack of rebuilding Phil Spector’s wall of sound in Wales with its human elements intact .
|
Copyright ©2005 FFWD. All rights reserved.