Gold Against The Soul - Manic Street Preachers > Reviews > Found That Soul

Author's product rating:   

Originality	Average
Lyrics	Sublime
Quality and consistency of tracks	A couple of weak links
How does it compare to the artist's other releases	Good
Value for Money

Advantages:	Quality songwriting, inspired words
Disadvantages:	Certainly not original

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

It’s eight years since this album was released to cries that Manic Street Preachers were ‘selling out’ with a very ‘grungey’ album designed to appeal to the American market. Well, just like Krusty the Clown, selling out is what the Manics have always been about. They proclaim to be Marxists but said they wanted to sell 30 million records on one of the biggest record labels in the world. Gold Against The Soul has never been regarded with much fondness by anyone, including the band, but excluding me.

I bought my copy in 1996, after Everything Must Go and The Holy Bible (I bought all four at the time in reverse chronological order). When I first listened to The Holy Bible I hated it, but this album’s commercial viewpoint makes it very accessible in a mainstream rock sound. It doesn’t sound like their first album Generation Terrorists, which was just Guns ‘n’ Roses with a political edge and more glamour and unlike their debut, this album has not dated quite so easily. But remember, this is a conventional American semi-hard rock album and owes more to In Utero than Use Your Illusion.

Sleepflower is the riff-heavy first track. The guitar marks a fantastic opening to the album and the track is pumping. The lyrics are as happy as ever, “You were extinction / A desert heat / A blind illness / Of my anxiety”. It’s not a happy opening track but it can get your feet moving.

From Despair To Where was a single so you might know it and it definitely has an air of the radio-friendly about it. The lyrics are very interesting though as they give us an insight into the mind of the enigmatic Richey Edwards. “There’s nothing nice in my head / The adult world took it all away”. It may sound like teenage angst to some, but considering what was to follow the lyrics are extremely interesting.

La Tristesse Durera was also a single and with it’s thumping bassline and catchy keyboards, it may not be to the hardcore’s taste, but I think it is an excellent track. The title comes from Van Gough’s suicide note and translates to ‘The sadness continues’, so you can get a fair idea of the content of the lyrics.

Yourself is Nirvana-like in many ways with the muted guitars of the verse and the loud chorus. It definitely sounds like something off In Utero, an album released the same year. But has a hint of an air of Generation Terrorists about it too. It’s not the best track on the album by any means. “Reservoirs of guilt / That your fixed grins always hide”.

Life Becoming A Landslide is one of those songs that the Manics do so well. It has beauty and tenderness in its melancholy and it has more insight into Richey when James Dean Bradfield sings the words “Life becoming a landslide / I don’t want to be a man”. Even more close to the bone is the line “My idea of life comes from / A childhood glimpse of pornography / Though there is no true love…” This is the strongest track on the album in my opinion. For those of you who are interested in going digging (no, not literally), it was the lead track on a fine EP with another great Manics track Are Mothers Saints?

Drug Drug Druggy has that typical Manics arrogance about it as they look down on drug culture. The band were always vocal in condemning the Madchester scene of the late 1980’s and this is it in musical form. The refrain “No more sunshine” and the line “Dance like a robot / When you’re chained at the knee”. This song is probably the closest the band has ever got to out and out humour in a song.

Roses In The Hospital is another single and with it’s guitar riff and almost funky sound it is definitely one of the band’s more accessible songs. It’s a shame that they have cast it off their last live set over the past couple of years. When James sings “Credibility, I’m yawning” it sounds like an act of defiance and defence for their entire existence. It also makes me wonder what they would think of what me and other reviewers on Ciao who have been slating their more recent work. But obviously they are too busy reading philosophy and poetry books to steal the only decent lyrics they can pen these days to be surfing the internet!

Nostalgic Pushead has a beautiful title and you can probably guess it’s a Candle In The Wind style ballad just from that. Oh, wait, sorry, I must have had wax in my ears. This track is actually quite like the Generation Terrorists sound and is probably not a particular favourite of the likes of John Squire, Ian Brown and Tim Burgess. This is another critique of the UK music scene with the refrain “Slavery to the beat / Slavery to the chord” and the wonderful line “So cool the new sound of the decade / Think it’s so fresh, not post Elvis still”. The Manics went on to support Oasis at Knebworth three years later.

Symphony Of Tourette is a better song than Tourettes by Nirvana, thus winning the battle of the songs with the word ‘tourette’ in the title. This is the sound of the first album reprised. It’s a pretty heavy track and quite simply deals with the affliction that is Gilles de Tourette syndrome, hence the wholesale use of the f-word. A lyrical quote – “I twich and turn while underneath / My contemporaries are so in control”.

Gold Against The Soul is a superb song technically with some great guitar work from James and the drums give the song a thumping heartbeat. This track is a sort of proto Design For Life in lyrical content. It is basically a song about the working classes, the Manics being one of the few self-proclaimed working class heroes to actually be working class. This is a sincere track with real significance for not just the band, but for people at large. And I don’t just mean the working classes either. “Working Class cliches start here / Either cloth caps or crack victims” is a particularly incisive line, as is “1000 Marlboro deaths ignored every day / And who gives a shit about sexuality”. I find this a very underrated track.

In fact, I find the whole album underrated. The lyrics are not the best they have come up with, but it has the passion and the performance levels are at their heights. It also marked a significant development in the strength of Bradfield’s voice and the picture of him singing, in the inner sleeve, is a testament to the passion it exudes. This is not the Manics’ best work by a long shot, but it is far from their worst, it’s going ridiculously cheap these days and if you have a fiver to spare you could do worse than to pick it up.