Bandwidth

Track listing
1 yes
2 ifwhiteamericatoldthetruthforonedayitsworldwouldfallapart
3 of walking abortion
4 she is suffering
5 archives of pain
6 revol
7 4st 7lb
8 mausoleum
9 faster
10 this is yesterday
11 die in the summertime
12 the intense humming of evil
13 pcp

A long, long time ago a Welsh band who had their glam rock leanings pulled their act together and released what many music fans may call one of the best albums ever written. Ironically many wont classify themselves as strict Manic Street Preacher fans partly due to the pish that followed The Holy Bible, namely This is My Truth Tell Me Yours, Lifeblood and Send Away the tigers. The change of style was so dramatic that many modern Manics fans may even look upon the Bible as one of those early albums where a band struggles to find their sound, which is fairly tragic to say the least.

Regardless, the story of The Holy Bible, released in the summer of 1994, will forever be entwined with that of the long since gone/lost/dead Richey James Edwards. Later revived with a posthumous crediting for Journal for Plague Lovers, which arguably rivals The Twilight Sad’s Forget The Night Ahead for the best British release of 2009, Edwards’ touch is all over the Bible. His tortured character has drawn many a comparison with Kurt Cobain’s throughout the years as both rose to heights neither envisaged nor probably ever wanted to achieve. Cobain can rightly be recognised as by far the better performer and all round musician (by all accounts Edwards couldn’t really play the guitar), yet the Manics at the time were seen very much in his image, his artistic creation almost. Nevertheless, the two could’ve both laid claim to the ultimate title of the tortured genius.

Stepping away from the more polished sounds of Gold Against the Soul, something that gives The Holy Bible a bit of an edge is the many sound bites throughout the album, strategically placed throughout to enhance the rawness. A running theme throughout the Bible is the rising danger of the increasingly powerful consumerist, totalitarian state and its twisted notion of freedom. From ‘ifwhiteamerica…’, to the ‘I think you are the devil itself’ soundbite and throttled bass intro of Archives of Pain, Bradfield, chief tune writer, manages to echo Richey’s thoughts into music from the very beginning. Meanings are turned on their head, inverted to give this morbid, nihilistic approach to life, such as the ‘all I preach is extinction’ line in Archives after ludicrously praising serial killers and war criminals.

The same rules apply to the hit single from the album, Faster. Complete with soundbite from an adaption of George Orwell 1984, Faster may be best remembered from an excellent performance at Top of The Pops, of all shows were they donned the stage clad in a mismatch of army and navy regalia. Along with Revol, almost Faster’s little brother, the two are the most standard rock tunes on the whole release.

There’s obviously a multitude of songs related to human suffering throughout history, a nod to Richey’s History degree he complete sometime earlier, such as Mausoleum, Archives of Pain and the almost terrifying The Intense Humming of Evil. Again the soundbite, played under thundering industrial drums, gives way to a truly horrible noise which can only be described as ‘flickering’, or ‘flitting’ – either way it would be easy to feel nauseous listening to it. Based around a concentration camp, Richey explores the naivety in some victims who couldn’t grasp how evil man can possible be, seen in the lines ‘you always mistook fists for flowers’ and ‘in block 5 we worship malaria’.

In contrast to the horror of these songs, This is Yesterday has to be one of the more beautiful songs on the album. A basic riff and drum beat runs throughout, with solo in the middle, the lyricist appears to be trying to deal with some of his own crushing depression. From the lines ‘someone somewhere soon will take care of you, I repent, everything is falling apart’, and ‘why do anything when you can forget anything’, it’s no surprise that Edwards wouldn’t make it to the American leg of the Bible’s tour.

It’s a shame The Holy Bible was never followed up with another one of equal standard. In later interviews James Dean Bradfield once said that, had Richey stuck around of course, the plan was for the next album to sound something like Pantera meets Nine Inch Nails meets Primal Scream – an unbelievable mix that, sadly, would never come to fruition. Instead Everything Must Go came out and the Manics, unfortunately driven by the hit machine Nicky Wire, picked up from where Gold Against the Soul left off and achieved a lot of commercial success. It’s almost as though The Holy Bible was a fleeting passerby, a one-off almost and one which ultimately proved to be a poisoned chalice for Richey Edwards.

It’s doubtful another lyricist like this will make it into a mainstream band, and so it’s doubtful that another album like this will ever be made again. Admittedly, the intensity of the album can be a tad daunting at first, perhaps owing to Edwards reading around 5 books a week at the time of writing, but once you get a feel for the album, there really is nothing else around like it. Some songs could literally bring you to tears. Maybe poetry’s the next closest thing, who knows. All that matters is that it was once here and now it’s gone.