A new lease of life
Manic Street Preachers Life Blood (20th Anniversary Edition)
Listening two decades on to the first two tracks on ‘Lifeblood’, it’s hard to believe the album was once considered disappointing by many including the band themselves.
James Dean Bradfield said later “I’d lost perspective on what made the Manics good” and their seventh album remains their least commercially successful.
‘Lifeblood’ is now released in expanded form for its 20th anniversary, with remasters, B-sides, demos, alternative versions, remixes and five songs recorded live at the BBC. Opening track 1985, about the time when they were a group of Blackwood teenagers considering forming a band, is now a fan favourite, the single they released. Second
‘The Of Richard Nixon’ is
quintessential Manics, the
US achievements (“people forget China and your war on cancer”) and – via a sample of his resignation speech – giving him a number two single.
The elegiac song is heavily synth-based, and the departure from their usual wall of guitars may explain why some hardcore fans were flummoxed.
Emily is a rare political song, about suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst, but is quiet and reflective, far from their punk rock roots.
Final song ‘Cardiff Afterlife’ returns us to South Wales, a tender tribute to guitarist Richey Edwards nine years after he disappeared.
Standout B-sides include ‘Askew Road’, about the west
London road where they stayed as a young band which samples an interview clip of Edwards, and ‘Litany’, the album’s working title.
With 46 songs and a three-hour running time the full edition is for the most dedicated fans butit’sadeserved tribute to an album that has risen in stature.