Know Your Enemy [ECD] - Manic Street Preachers > Reviews > Are they lost souls

Author's product rating:   

Originality	Definitely a cut above the rest
Lyrics	Thought-provoking
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:	Honest songwriting, some outstanding tracks
Disadvantages:	Too long, a few "filler" tracks

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

MANIC STREET PREACHERS – KNOW YOUR ENEMY

~~ A BIT OF HISTORY ~~

The Manic Street Preachers are a band that have fascinated me since their formation in 1989. They were explosive, androgynous, disgusted, full of bile and raw talent. Inspired by The Clash and the Sex Pistols and driven by the boredom of life in Blackwood, Gwent they vowed they would make one multi-million selling album and then split up (fortunately they didn’t, although their debut album “Generation Terrorists” is an all-time classic).

For many people, Richey Edwards was the defining figure of the Manics. The bands spokesperson and (very poor if you’re honest) guitarist, he was an outstanding lyricist, who could combine a political agenda with bile and honest emotion. Unfortunately he had the curse of so many a genius, his talent plagued by (or resulting from?) mental instability, anorexia and excess – Richey once famously carved the words “4 REAL” in his arm with a razor when questioned by a music journalist over the bands integrity. In January 1995, the evening before the band were due to fly out to America to promote their third album "The Holy Bible", Richey Edwards disappeared. He has not been seen since.

The Manics continued as a three-piece and went on to write 2 more albums –"Everything Must Go" and "This is My Truth Tell Me Yours". These received critical acclaim and commercial success although many hard core fans felt they lacked the rawness and integrity of the original punk days.

~~ HIGH EXPECTATIONS ~~

“Know Your Enemy” is the Manic Street Preachers sixth studio album and sees the band attempting to return to their artistic roots. Nicky Wire, base player and (now) main lyricist, was quoted as saying “The enemy is what we’d become. What we had let ourselves become” – this album is about the Manics recapturing the ‘us-against-the-world’ attitude of their youth.

As if to signify the bands intent to return to their youthful ways, the launch of Know Your Enemy was fittingly unconventional: two singles ("Found That Soul" and "So Why So Sad") released on the same day, a launch gig at the Karl Marx Theatre in Havana, Cuba and a meeting with Fidel Castro!

It is difficult to express how important the Manics are to their fans - they are about more than just music, they symbolise a voice against the mediocre, tabloid culture, never subject to the marketing bullshit that continues to destroy real music, never part of any invented “scene” like Britpop, angered by the Americanisation of the world, seeing through the hypocrisy of consumerism – in short, summarising everything that for us, is “4 REAL”.

Inevitably then, there were high expectations attached to the release of "Know Your Enemy". We were praying for an album to rival the Richey-era genius of "The Holy Bible", a return to form. Maybe this is unfair, maybe you just can’t re-capture the past. And maybe this taints my ability to objectively review the album. In these times when the music scene is dominated either by uninspired drivel (Coldplay, Travis, David Gray….yawn!) or manufactured teen-pop, had any other band released songs of this quality I would have given it a five star review. So, my apologies in advance if I’m over critical, but the Manics are not just any other band.

~~ THE ALBUM ~~

Typically with Manics albums you get your moneys worth if the number of tracks is anything to go by. 16 songs and …. keep listening ….. a bonus (cover version) track. The full track listing is:

1. Found That Soul
2. Ocean Spray
3. Intravenous Agnostic
4. So Why So Sad
5. Let Robeson Sing
6. Year Of Purification, The
7. Wattsville Blues
8. Miss Europa Disco Dancer
9. Dead Martyrs
10. His Last Painting
11. My Guernica
12. Convalescent, The
13. Royal Correspondent
14. Epicentre
15. Baby Elian
16. Freedom Of Speech Won't Feed My Children

With 16 tracks, I won’t comment on each and every one. There is a lot of variety here from sensitive acoustic tracks to punk rock. I think Nicky Wires lyrics are brave and intelligent. He tries to deal with complex issues and sometimes (as in "Baby Elian", inspired by the America-Cuba tug of war custody battle over the Cuban child Elian Gonzales in Florida last year) they come across as a little naïve and lacking subtlety. But at least he is brave enough to write about real issues. There are also some filler tracks in my view – "Dead Martyrs", "His Last Painting" and "Royal Correspondent" are sadly forgettable.

There are some interesting ones too – "Wattsville Blues" sees Nicky Wire taking the lead vocal. This song is a retort to the Daily Mirror who printed a picture of Nicky Wires terraced house in Wattsville, South Wales with the caption ‘Why does Nicky Wire still live here?’. His answer: “I’m so happy I know I can never leave” – and for all those who said the bile had gone, “I fucking despise every single organism”.

"Miss Europa Disco Dancer" is a disco pastiche, with a disco baseline and disco-hating lyrics. A brave song, but I tend to hit the skip button!

For me, the stand-out tracks are:

"Found That Soul" - a powerful rocker, a great opening track. Perhaps a little formulaic, although you imagine it will comes into its own live played a little less tight. The lyrics aren’t groundbreaking, but do hint at least at the Manics of old “I exist in a self made vacuum, but still stranded here with all the scum”

"Ocean Spray" - is the first track written by the lead singer James Dean Bradfield, it was inspired by his mother on her deathbed who would ask for Ocean Spray cranberry juice – Bradfield sings “please stay awake then we can drink some ocean spray”. It is a song about watching somebody die, but it is beautiful, one of the stand-out tracks on the album. Acoustic guitar, a very passionate vocal and crunching guitar solo. This may not please some of the aging punks in the Manics fan base, but there’s no denying the quality of this song.

"The Convalescent" is the most introspective song on the album, a punky / rocky rhythm guitar number

"Freedom of Speech Won’t Feed my Children" is the last track (not counting the bonus track cover). It has everything from heavy punky guitar, to beach boys style harmonies. The lyrics are angry, but intelligent – a classic Manics tune that ranks with the best: “So we protest about human rights, worship obesity as our birthright, and freedom of speech won’t feed my children, just brings heart disease and bootleg clothing”

"Let Robeson Sing" – a song about Paul Robeson, an American songwriter and civil rights figurehead. This is my personal favourite from the album. Acoustic guitar and whirling organ, sensitive lyrics that really show how much Nicky Wire empathises with the subject, the song builds gradually and ends being montaged with Robesons own speaking voice “now let the freedom train come steaming down the track….” Again, far from typical Manics but who cares when the songs are this good?

As well as being a great tribute to Paul Robeson, this song hints at a real change in the Manics who have indicated that they will probably only record one more album before calling it a day. There’s almost a reluctant admission that the Manics views and ideology are out of synch with the modern world, that capitalism has won and that, although we might hate it, there’s frankly very little we can do about it – “Can anyone make a difference any more, can anyone write a protest song” Nicky Wire asks.

This fatalism is echoed in another fine track, "My Guernica" - “I’m small and I am tired, I’m blurred to bits and wired, I’m nothing in this universe, nothing but pieces of dust”

~~ IN CONCLUSION ~~

It’s almost impossible to objectively review this album if you get too hung up on the Manics Richey-era work. If I’m honest the lyrics are no match for The Holy Bible, but that doesn’t detract from Nicky Wire’s considerable talents as a songwriter. And no, it’s not as bilious or raw as The Holy Bible, but it is nevertheless inspired and honest. This in itself is refreshing in this era of over produced bullshit music.

Is "Know Your Enemy" a return to form? Well the Manics had never really lost their form, although perhaps they lost a bit of their soul. I think with this album they’ve "found that soul", it is a return to honest song writing and passionate performing.

Just don’t expect it to be a return to the past.