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Manic Street Preachers continue

Started by Mark Steels Stockbroker, February 22, 2018, 08:13:30 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

Glyn

Quote from: Beagle 2 on April 17, 2018, 11:15:32 AM
8. Hold me Like a Heaven. More whoooahs. This song is mostly whoooas.
Some of those whoooahs are provided by BBC Wales' Sports Presenter Stefan Garrero though so that has to count for something (reused from Together Stronger is my only theory on how that has happened).

Hold Me Like a Heaven is the only song I think is truly successful on the album (like Golden Platitudes on the Postcards album) but there is just enough to currently convince me that the album isnt the complete disaster I feared when I first heard Distant Colours.

Vodka Margarine

Quote from: Beagle 2 on April 17, 2018, 11:15:32 AM
Entertaining and honest review

Tsunamis of imaginary karma to wash over you, there.

James Dean Bradfield or Nicky Wire - I forget which one but it definitely wasn't, you know, him - was talking about how 'International Blue' suddenly made the rest of the songs on Resistance Is Futile 'sound good', much in the same way 'A Design For Life' did with its surrounding material on Everything Must Go. Mate. EMG sounds good because it is good. RIF sadly isn't rendered dazzling by virtue of having perhaps their nineteenth best post Richey single as track two.

purlieu

After a few more listens my opinion seems to be largely the same as it was at first: an album I'll definitely enjoy listening to when I'm in a Manicsy mood and listening to a few of their records, but not one I'm ever going to have the desire to pick off the shelf and listen to of its own accord.

Mark Steels Stockbroker


Shaky

Bonus track "A Soundtrack for Complete Withdrawal" has a lovely woozy charm. Definitely should have been on the album.

Desirable Industrial Unit

Quote from: Mark Steels Stockbroker on April 17, 2018, 09:33:16 PM
Nice background music.

And in the end, wasn't that what they set out to produce?

purlieu

No, that was Brian Eno. The two are easy to mix up.

They were magnificent in Manchester last night. The best I've seen them, and the new stuff sounded decent live. Stuff like People Give In and Dylan & Caitlin really suffer from flat production on the record. Hold Me Like a heaven was an unexpected highlight.

Could've done without an acoustic version of Faster, mind.

PaulTMA

A strange thing has happened, in that I'm still playing the second half of this album (and International Blue) more than two weeks after it's release date.  My problem is the Sunday Brunch Manics sound of those other songs on side one, which of course are the only ones they've chosen to play live.

I think everything beyond Liverpool Revisited is top. Even the Nicky Wire one. Sequels of Forgotten Wars and A Song for the Sadness are among my favourite Manics songs of the decade.

Bin off Vivian and Liverpool revisited (I don't think they've put anything worse than these on a record since Know Your Enemy) and play around with the order and I reckon we'd all be talking about this much more favourably.

Glyn

Just to add that the track Mirror Gaze is rather fantastic but for god knows what reason is a 'japan only bonus track'. Has a great 70s rock bridge,catchy chorus, a big solo, and the line 'I've got the monkey sitting on my neck' in it. In another universe this is the perfect hidden closing track for this album.

purlieu

Quote from: Wayman C. McCreery on April 29, 2018, 09:13:43 PMA Song for the Sadness
The continual contrast between the sweeping, wistful melody and that bluesy riff is absolutely bloody brilliant. My favourite on here and quickly becoming a Manics favourite in general.

Quote from: Glyn on April 30, 2018, 08:33:52 AM
Just to add that the track Mirror Gaze is rather fantastic but for god knows what reason is a 'japan only bonus track'. Has a great 70s rock bridge,catchy chorus, a big solo, and the line 'I've got the monkey sitting on my neck' in it. In another universe this is the perfect hidden closing track for this album.

Where can I hear this? Google isn't helping.


Dr Syntax Head

Can we all just agree that The Holy Bible is one of the best albums ever made?

Spiteface

Quote from: PaulTMA on April 29, 2018, 06:18:21 PM
A strange thing has happened, in that I'm still playing the second half of this album (and International Blue) more than two weeks after it's release date.  My problem is the Sunday Brunch Manics sound of those other songs on side one, which of course are the only ones they've chosen to play live.

In Eternity would be awesome live.

Quote from: Dr Syntax Head on April 30, 2018, 07:52:11 PM
Can we all just agree that The Holy Bible is one of the best albums ever made?

Yes. I think we should, at least.

Jockice

Quote from: Dr Syntax Head on April 30, 2018, 07:52:11 PM
Can we all just agree that The Holy Bible is one of the best albums ever made?

I preferred Gold Against The Soul. Honestly.

rue the polywhirl

Quote from: Jockice on April 30, 2018, 09:11:39 PM
I preferred Gold Against The Soul. Honestly.

Gold Against The Soul is miles better than Holy Bible and that's not even a slight. I reckon along side Everything Must Go it's their best aged album. I used to worship The Holy Bible but it's so redolent of being an awkward suffering teenager I've turned off it and I'd pick the real holy bible over it now.

sevendaughters

I will always have a soft spot for MSP but I don't think they've ever done a consistent album from soup to nuts. 5-6 good ones from every album up to Know Your Enemy with some cool EP tracks, covers, singles, b-sides, and spotty thereafter. At gunpoint I'd pick The Holy Bible for its ambition.

thraxx

Quote from: rue the polywhirl on April 30, 2018, 09:41:14 PM
Gold Against The Soul is miles better than Holy Bible and that's not even a slight. I reckon along side Everything Must Go it's their best aged album. I used to worship The Holy Bible but it's so redolent of being an awkward suffering teenager I've turned off it and I'd pick the real holy bible over it now.

I love Gold Against the Soul, everything up to Roses in the Hospital is brilliant, then the last three songs are pish.  Hard to think of another album that falls to pieces so badly actually.  Wonderfully produced too. 

The Holy Bible though is a life changing record though. One of the best records ever, a proper album, a document.  Yes, I agree.

sevendaughters


thraxx

Quote from: sevendaughters on April 30, 2018, 10:05:00 PM
haha I like Nostalgic Pushead

If you stuck big production versions of, say, Motorcycle Emptiness, Little Baby Nothing, and Slash and Burn instead of the last three songs on GATS, you'd have one of the best albums of the 90s.

LOL the farty keyboards on Nostalgic Pushead and that chanty shouty bit at the end.

Shaky

Quote from: Wayman C. McCreery on April 30, 2018, 05:20:02 PM
Where can I hear this? Google isn't helping.

It's on Soulseek. Nabbed it yesterday myself. Still looking out for Holdings Patterns, though.

Quote from: sevendaughters on April 30, 2018, 10:05:00 PM
haha I like Nostalgic Pushead

PS. Nostalgic Pushead is one of my favourite MSP songs! Gold Against the Soul (the track) is great as well.

purlieu

Quote from: rue the polywhirl on April 30, 2018, 09:41:14 PM
I used to worship The Holy Bible but it's so redolent of being an awkward suffering teenager I've turned off it
Yeah, I have a lot of admiration for the album's scope and musical weirdness, and I do like a lot of the songs, but it's such a fucking angst-fest in places that I find it really hard to get any emotional resonance from a lot of it these days. It's not in my top 5 Manics albums. But then neither are the first two either. Richey-era Manics isn't a band I'm that fond of, but post-Richey Manics is.

Dr Syntax Head

Generation Terrorists is bloody class, reminds me of bombing around the lanes in a car with me mates blasting that album out. I only found out recently that the drums were programmed. I would love to hear a version of that album with proper drumming like.

Shaky

Quote from: Dr Syntax Head on May 01, 2018, 02:02:24 PM
Generation Terrorists is bloody class, reminds me of bombing around the lanes in a car with me mates blasting that album out. I only found out recently that the drums were programmed. I would love to hear a version of that album with proper drumming like.

As well as being remixed, the US version of the album featured a session drummer on a few songs which is probably the first time I've heard of real drums being replaced by a drum machine then replaced by real drums again. A bit silly and doesn't improve anythng for me but check out Slash n Burn, anyway:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/iIeJBjo4joM

Dr Syntax Head

Quote from: Shaky on May 01, 2018, 02:23:05 PM
As well as being remixed, the US version of the album featured a session drummer on a few songs which is probably the first time I've heard of real drums being replaced by a drum machine then replaced by real drums again. A bit silly and doesn't improve anythng for me but check out Slash n Burn, anyway:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/iIeJBjo4joM

That's right brilliant that is. I love Slash n burn but not listened to it in a while. Got proper goosebumps now

Custard

I love early and latter day Manics, but even I can't defend Vivian with a straight face. Fucking honking. Amazing

purlieu

It's quite fun if you sing 'Turning Japanese' along with the chorus, though.

garbed_attic

Just listened to it through. I don't think I've heard such a second-half quality loaded album since REM's Out of Time.

With the first half the Manics do that weird thing they do of James belting out the numbers, guitars blazing, Sean's drumming storming as ever, yet it gaining absolutely no hold upon the ears. They so rarely sound as though they're just phoning it in, but sometimes the tracks just wash over you.

The second half has some vim and vinegar though and I genuinely enjoyed Nicky's singing on the last track.