04.
Manic Street Preachers
Journal For Plague Lovers

The top four caused me trouble this year. I had four albums that were easily way above all others in my estimation, but which I had real difficulty weighing against one another. Every time I listened to any of them, then that record, the one on my stereo right now, that was the album of the year. After a concerted effort I eventually ranked them, and so the Manic Street Preachers ultimately got the worst deal, coming in fourth. The big surprise, though, is that an album by the Manic Street Preachers was part of this illustrious Champions League grouping. They have been so consistently middle of the road and so blandly awful for so long that Journal For Plague Lovers is nothing short of a miracle. It was made using entirely old lyrics of Richie Edwards’ from a scrap book of his. The artist from 1994’s The Holy Bible was recommissioned to do the artwork, and so, somehow, the ghost of Richie also seemed to have a hand in the music. This album is a natural successor to The Holy Bible (ignore the five albums in between); it has the same punk attitude, the same swagger and the same musical ‘feel’ as the Manic Street Preachers’ long forgotten masterpiece. Ok, so it’s not quite in the same league as The Holy Bible (which is still one of my top five albums ever), but it is certainly my favourite record of theirs since then, and represents the rebirth of the band that I used to love. Not to say that Journal For Plague Lovers is just a rehash of The Holy Bible. The Manic Street Preachers have learned from their years in the Mums/Vicars/dinner parties wilderness that ‘melody’ is no bad thing, and so Journal For Plague Lovers draws on some of the good things that came out of the post-Richie years and adds them to their old punk sound. So, while ‘Jackie Collins Existential Question Time’ rockets along much like ‘Yes’ did 15 years ago, it does so with a melodic underpinning that wasn’t a part of their early work. A back from the dead album to surpass even Machine Head’s rebirth with 2007’s The Blackening (a totally different type of band, of course, but the point still holds). This is what I want from the Manic Street Preachers and had long since given up on getting. In one record they have gone from being barely worth considering to being right near the top of the tree again. Where they should be.