Manic Street Preachers – The Holy Bible

Scathing lyrics, a sinister marriage between guitar and bass, militaristic drumming and a heavy reliance on semitones, minor thirds and clash-clash-clash dissonance. It’s THE album by the Manic Street Preachers – it’s The Holy Bible, of course.

Conceived in August 1994, this is the Manic Street Preachers‘ third studio album, after debut Generation Terrorists (more of an early singles collection – too many tracks, more filler than killer) and Gold Against The Soul (a friendlier and altogether poppier affair which boasts some of the band’s best singles). Famously, this is the final Manics album to be recorded with the now presumed-dead former guitarist, Richey Edwards. The lyrical content has been pulled apart by commentators looking for clues that could pinpoint Edwards’ sudden disappearance; his poetic, cutting and often disturbing ramblings shaped into songs by James Dean Bradfield.

The simply titled ‘Yes’ kicks off proceedings with its emphatic chorus: “I eat and I dress and I wash and I can still say thank you, puking, shaking, sinking, I still stand for old ladies, can’t shout, can’t scream, I hurt myself to get pain out”. Wow. You can’t say that they didn’t warn you about what you’re getting into when you sit down with this record. Like Radiohead, politics weigh heavily on the minds of the Manics, who sacked off their white jeans and spray-painted tops for militaristic attire during this period. Political commentary is littered liberally through all of their albums, but is perhaps at its most explicit here. Second track ‘Ifwhiteamericatoldthetruthforonedayitsworldwouldfallapart’ – the garbled title in stark contrast to that of’Yes’ – is an anti-American diatribe, as if the title didn’t tell you that already. You could never accuse the Manics of beating around the bush, that’s for sure.

‘Of Walking Abortion’ is utterly terrifying in tone and subject, in keeping with much of this album. Historical figures – Mussolini, Hitler – are scattered amongst the lyrics in the album sleeve, amidst quotations from Octave Mirbeau’s The Torture Garden. This song ends with the piercing reprise of “Who’s responsible? You fucking are”, with the incessant beat of the toms and the synchronsed refrain of the guitars burning into your ears. ‘She is Suffering’ nods to the Gold Against The Soul style, more classic-rock than faux-Soviet prog. With a textbook JDB solo, and the focus temporarily pulled away from political and social horrors, this sort of feels like a step back.

The heavy fuzz of Nicky Wire’s bass on ‘Archives Of Pain’ could have been recorded dozens of feet below the earth, and heralds the return of the incessant vitriol, coalescing with Bradfield’s guitar riff and melody line to form the biggest headfuck of your worst nightmares. Yes folks, by track five, we’re onto serial killers. Probably the most popular single from this album, ‘Faster’, is preceded by its younger, sprightlier brother in ‘Revol’, with its trade held in super-catchy chorus and infectious fuzz-riffs. ‘4st 7lb’ showcases beautiful-but-haunting thoughts on the subject of anorexia. The broken chords that punctuate this track are present throughout the album, but stop dead for a heartbreaking coda: “such beautiful dignity in self abuse”. This record hammers, presses, squeezes your mind and inflicts unexpected little heart attacks.

If The Holy Bible was a colour, it would be charcoal grey. It can’t be black, because rare bright-white glints slash through the block colour and cast a faded shadow across the album as a whole. ‘Mausoleum’ does not let up the darkness, with its charred text and not-from-this-lifetime eerie feedback opening up into ‘Faster’, which is famed for its speed-of-light guitar solo.

‘This Is Yesterday’ is, to many, the record’s misnomer. It’s a bit out of place – a bit too flimsy, maybe, with a lazy hi-hat – almost like the LP runs out of steam and limps to a standstill. The song reawakens with another bit of signature JDB noodling, and then we’re back into more minor key riffing and straight-from-my-brain-onto-the-paper parlance. ‘Die In The Summertime’ is one of the stand-out tunes on The Holy Bible, proferring more images of nature and the intricacies of modern living. After listening to this, you wouldn’t feel at all intrusive peering into Richey Edward’s diaries – this is so raw and pure. The final lyric “I wanna die…” is left hanging in mid-air before a petrifying death-march squeaks into ‘The Intense Humming Of Evil’. More laconic than what’s gone before, but not for one second casting away the darkness.

After a lengthy and painful trek, we stumble, gasping, into the last track, live favourite ‘PCP’ pitching post-modern conversational wordplay with a shout-along chorus. Then that’s sort of it, and you can breathe again. The US mix takes the record to a whole new level of clarity; like you’ve listened to the original version underwater and have come up for air. The production on the UK version is cloudy, murky, and dark as hell, which definitely lends itself to the intended ambience, but the US mix is preferable if you’re after a “yeah, this is the ’90s rock guitar in action” album.

Someone I used to know once said that he listened to this album during dark and depressing days. Then times changed and he sold this album on eBay, saying he just can’t listen to it anymore. On some levels, this album is way too much to bear. On the surface, constantly, and to the core, often, it’s still fascinating me. This is the Manics at their most primal, like a hummingbird that you can’t flick away, buzzing around your brain, turning all the answers you know into questions.