Hyperfocus #8: Lifeblood is not the Manic Street Preachers entry point you'd expect
The Welsh band's 2004 album was a turning point as they continued to grapple with a conflicted history—and yet its unique nature makes an interesting starting point for anyone new to their music.
It was 2004. This was around the time when I was forming my own musical preferences, specifically wading into British alternative and indie. By this time I was already enamored by Keane—I wrote a whole Hyperfocus essay about that last year—and I was thinking if I should like Coldplay, too.
Back then, a local cable channel, Myx, was airing weeks-old episodes of Top of the Pops, the seminal BBC chart show1. At a time when we only had dial-up Internet and I couldn’t listen to foreign radio stations as freely as I do now, that show was an education, somewhat. It tapped me into a universe of music that’s just slightly different from the one the radio stations in Manila inhibited, one dominated by American hits and, luckily for us, the wave of Filipino alternative bands that was inescapable at the time.
That night, they had a performance from a band that I had heard of somewhere, but haven’t really had the chance to try, because, again, dial-up Internet. I don’t think I was looking at the television at the time, but I remember the precise moment I heard the song start—propulsive drums carrying a twinkling piano hook—I knew I would have a new favorite song.
It was “Empty Souls” by the Manic Street Preachers.
Looking back, it’s funny how, off the back of that one song, I assumed the Manics were also a piano-driven band like my newfound British favorites. But then, I wasn’t really geeking out on music at this point. I remember thinking the Verve was an old band off the back of “Bitter Sweet Symphony”2. Twenty years in, I know of the complex history of this band from Wales. Their unabashed punk-rock, scholarly, political leanings—adjacent to, but not exactly part of, the Britpop movement—off the strength of their then lead songwriter Richey Edwards. His troubled life, which culminated in his disappearance in 19953. How the remaining members of the band—vocalist and guitarist James Dean Bradfield, bassist Nicky Wire, and drummer Sean Moore—found themselves adrift until their 1996 album, Everything Must Go, saw them publicly grapple with past ghosts. How they nonetheless assumed their current position as one of British alternative’s pillars, unafraid still to experiment and let their reading lists influence their songs, but inevitably mellowed out, whatever that means.
All that history doesn’t quite explain Lifeblood, though. Released twenty years ago this November4, it received mixed reactions from critics at the time. In contrast to the albums that came before, which pretty much had arena domination in its sights, it was more introspective, both sonically and thematically. It was frostier, and it wasn’t just the piano that was all over the record5: it has the vibe of being recorded in an empty room in the dead of winter, and everything about that image bleeding through it. It’s a way of having the studio as an instrument without making it a producer’s playground.
Nicky—who assumed lead lyricist duties after Richey’s disappearance—talked about how the album was about “death and solitude and ghosts, being haunted by history and being haunted by your own past”. It was still very much the band grappling with what happened in 1995. I think nothing captures that more than, well, obviously, “I Live To Fall Asleep”.
There weren’t streaming services back in 2004, of course, so I didn’t get to listen to Lifeblood in its entirety until just a few years ago. But I remember this song being featured in a listicle (before they were called as such) on the much-missed Burn magazine6. I think it was a feature about sad songs, or break-up songs, I’m not really sure now. Someone uploaded the song on YouTube, and I listened to it, and yes, it was the peak of introspection. The most piano-driven song of the album, it starts of deliciously but somehow sneakily unmasks the sinister sadness that drives through it.
But it’s not the song that I’ve been listening to a lot lately. That goes to a third favorite of mine off the album, “A Song for Departure”.
Outside of “Empty Souls”—and only because that’s my gateway to the Manics—this song is my favorite one ever from the band. It is the perfect synthesis of the group’s history up until that point: it’s as if Lifeblood’s introspective nature allowed a bit of the Everything Must Go formula in, a bit of the rock band they were in the early years. When the band released the official visualizer a few weeks ago, someone called James’ guitar solo at the end “unapologetic”. True enough, it is. The song is perhaps the most untouched (from the core band’s original sound) of the entire record, with the effects just supporting rather than taking the lead, not that there’s anything wrong with that. And that ending lick—what a send-off7.
Of course, it helps that the song is literally about departures.
If you consider the Manics’ whole history, Lifeblood did what it unknowingly set out to do: confront its ghosts and, well, not exactly exorcise them, but rather learn to deal with them. Their next three albums—2007’s Send Away the Tigers, 2009’s Journal for Plague Lovers and 2010’s Postcards from a Young Man—definitely aimed to make a splash, with James explicitly describing the third as “one last attempt at mass communication”. (I mean, if “(It’s Not War) Just The End Of Love” doesn’t do it for you, what will?) But they have made peace with that past loss. Journal for Plague Lovers exclusively featured lyrics that Richey left behind, and was critically well-received despite initial apprehensions that they were trying to recapture past glories.
But I suppose that’s what Lifeblood allowed them to do. It was equivalent to an introvert staying inside to recharge their social batteries. It was a well-needed rest, even if it was difficult to get by at the time. It propelled the band forward in the second half (so far) of their careers, one where they largely managed to escape possible impressions of just cashing in on the 1990s heyday. Indeed, the Manics remain as potent now as they were then, aided again by their wearing their literary influences up their sleeves, and their well-meaning sonic adventures.
The record also allowed them to recontextualize the first half of their careers—from the release of their 1992 debut Generation Terrorists to their unrealized vision of what eventually was 2001’s Know Your Enemy8—and provide insight into the emotional currents that may seem difficult to pin down from such word-y performers, but was always there. I think of “Everything Must Go”, of how it functioned as a message to the fans about how the music may have changed, but the band remained the same. It was the album right after Richey disappeared, and they didn’t quite know where to go, but in hindsight, it was a defiant opening salvo.
Those of you who read the old music blog may remember this as the last song I ever wrote about on there. I wouldn’t have done so if I didn’t hear “Empty Souls” the first time on that Tuesday night, when I was watching television instead of preparing to go to bed. It’s a shame I never found a physical copy of this record9 when I was still able to go to record stores outside of the Philippines… but maybe I’ll be lucky this time around.
Tuesday nights at 9pm. See, I still remember.
Of course, the song was released in 1997, but featured a sample from the Andrew Oldham Orchestra covering the Rolling Stones’ “The Last Time'“ back in 1967. That sample, of course, was what got the song caught up in a royalty dispute that meant for most of its life Richard Ashcroft was not getting royalties for his biggest hit.
Richey Edwards was not an original member of the Manics, having joined officially in 1989. He didn’t have much when it comes to musical talent, but he nonetheless defined their early musical direction, and wrote many of the band’s lyrics at the time, including most of second album The Holy Bible. He was also open about his suffering from severe depression, and particularly his self-harming: when asked by then NME journalist Steve Lamacq whether he was serious about his art, he carved “4 Real” on his forearm with a blade. He disappeared on 1 February 1995, but was only declared “presumed dead” thirteen years later. Up to this day, the three remaining members leave 25% of their royalties to an account in his name.
I was planning this Hyperfocus essay for November, but the Manics are reissuing Lifeblood—with the inevitable added tracks, including this tasty remix of “1985” by Steven Wilson—on 12 April.
It wasn’t the first time they prominently featured the piano—or any other non-rock-y instrument—in their releases, of course. Everything Must Go relied heavily on strings to make a clean break. “You’re Tender And You’re Tired” from This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours also starts off lusciously, but has a little more dread in the mix considering the sentiments of exhaustion and eternal rest.
There was a time in the 2000s when record stores where big (like everywhere else, really) and local music magazines were everywhere. Pulp—a name now familiar to most as an organizer of rock and K-pop concerts—started as a magazine with a bit of counter culture red, with their pages filed with risky and conceptual photo shoot and their reviews (rated in oranges) often covering metal and rock bands. Burn, published by the folks behind the Philippine Daily Inquirer, was the one I preferred: it was more accessible, for one, and it seemed to cover a wider range of genres. It was a bit more hipster, too. I remember it featuring an article written by musician and writer Lourd de Veyra tracing the history of Tito, Vic and Joey, focusing specifically on their Tough Hits albums. It went out of print after two years or so; I regret not keeping the copies.
That said, a case has to be made for “Cardiff Afterlife” being the actual send-off—and not just because it’s the closing track. The excellent Manic Street Preachers Song-by-Song blog talks about how that song marked the band’s definitive attempt to start afresh after grappling with Richey’s disappearance, sonically transitioning from the frosty guitar to a harmonica, of all things.
The Manics originally envisioned Know Your Enemy as two albums—the introspective Door to the River and the politically-charged Solidarity—released on the same day. However, their record label, Epic, wasn’t keen on that, so both got smooshed into one album. It was only in 2022 when a remastered edition saw the original concept realized.
I do have Journal for Plague Lovers and Postcards from a Young Man on CD.
Great choice of band! Love the Manic Street Preachers.