Manic Street Preachers Discography - Part Eight: Know Your Enemy (2001)
Hey! Another Manics review and you didn't have to wait two months! I must be getting good at this stuff. After the very big success of This Is My Truth..., the Manics were really able to do whatever the hell they liked with their next record, and due to some of the criticism of that album being rather lackadaisical, thats almost what they did. Know Your Enemy may have had the most boring run of singles of any Manics album to date, but the rest of its tracklisting is sprawling, expansive and really rather odd. It's not all good, but it's got a lot more effort put into in that the last one did. In a way it follows the same format as Truth; boring, by the numbers singles pack the frontend, whilst the rest of the album is made up of the odd stuff. Anyway let's get going.
The Manics did something rather unusual with this album in that they released two singles on the same day. Really it was just a double Aside, but as they made two videos and released two separate singles, it did seem a bit different. The first of the two, and our opener, is Found That Soul. It's Manics in we-can-still-rock mode, with a nice fuzzy guitar tone only ruined by a very misplaced piano note that goes plink plink plink ALL THE WAY THROUGH. Lyrically it's nothing weighty, but at this point it was just nice to hear them doing something a little more rawk. The video tied into the mood of band-flashback, showing a girl reading a ton of Manicsy books whilst James sang in the dark and patted a hedgehog. Or something like that, I forget. The message of the song? Um...they've found that soul? That's as far as I get. There's a nice overdriven guitar solo which is probably the highlight of the song, and then after 3 minutes, it's gone. A goodish opener.
Second up is one of the albums more quiet moment, Ocean Spray, which was another single and is also noteworthy for being the first Manics song to contain lyrical contributions from James. It's hard to fault too much because it's about James' mother dying of cancer, and him visiting her in hospital, but yet in the oft-criticised Ocean Spray promoting chorus, the main lyric sounds so silly as to aaaalmost ruin the sentiment. Almost, but in my opinion not quite. Musically it's not got a lot going on, and I wouldn't have picked it as an obvious single, but at least it's not as vapid as You Stole The Sun from the last record. The whole song for me is saved by a lovely Sean Moore trumpet solo near the end, which as with Kevin Carter totally proves that EVERY SINGLE MANICS SONG should have him playing trumpet. Truth.
Intravenous Agnostic follows, and it's bloody good. One of my favourite songs on the album, EASILY. The guitar tones are so NICE. Like Teenage Fanclub/Posies nice. Its upbeat, sounds off the cuff and energetic, Sean's drumming is grrreat! and hey! it sounds a bit like Dinosaur Jr! or prime Pumpkins! Who ever thought I could say that about a Manics song. Good solo too. The only thing I would fault it on would be the unweildy lyrics, and the fact that Nicky tries to push his vocals into the mix. More on that later. Urggggh. As for the lyrics, I haven't studied them enough to comment, and to be honest, the songs got enough chutzpah for me to not care less!
So Why So Sad was the other single released on the same day as Found That Soul, and it's another one that's rather out of left field, in that production wise it's a total Brian Wilson tribute. It doesn't totally work, the buhbuhbuhs and the echo on the vocal sounds good, but it was done FAR better by REM on the transcendent At My Most Beautiful. It's a very odd lead single to promote a new album and to be honest i'm not sure if i've ever 'got it'. What is it about? Is it about sadness? If so, why is it so happy? What are those lyrics about? Why are they quoting Sonic Youth song titles? This song succeeds in worming its way into my affections purely for the absolutely bizarre and LOUD keyboard solo. Anything that stupid HAS to be good.
Let Robeson Sing should be great. A song venerating one of the greatest people of the 20th century. And yet to me it just comes over as a little bit...sappy. The lyrics are okay, but the presentation is just too tepid and boring. There's nothing of the power and soul of Robeson in there for me, and the whole concept seems odd; why are this band, who used to be so damn vital, writing something so uninspiring? Really it just makes me want to go and listen to Robeson. Not in the way it intends to, but I guess it can still be considered a good thing? Some crazy cider drinker over at Drowned In Sound ordered me not to forget to mention the stupidest, most inappropriate, hilarious and bizarre remix of all time that accompanied this single. Imagine this song, remixed to sound like the Happy Mondays, with rapping by Ian Brown. Oh yes it sounds like a joke doesn't it? But oooooh no. May you let: 'Rockin in Havana like a Manic Street Preacha!.' be your rallying cry from this moment forth.
The Year Of Purification is similar in ways to Intravenous, sounding very eighties indie-popish, in fact very similar to some McCarthy material, a band who were clearly very influential on the Manics (but more about them later). Again, the lyrics pass me by because the performance is so jolly and interesting that I don't need to bother with them. It seems with some of these tracks that the Manics have indeed finally entered a new stage; because rather than making awful political statements in the lyrics of every song and quite often ruining them, sometimes they just let the track slip out without a big line about Castro's righteous fury and it works a lot better.
Oh dear oh dear. Wattsville Blues. Nicky Wire on vocals. Pretending to be Mark E. Smith. And...it's not that bad. Certainly shocking at first for long time fans, but actually listening to it now I really...rather....quite like it. A bit. It's out of tune, stupid, completely disconnected from anything no the last album and indeed on this album so far, and this is ALL GOOD. Yes every other Wire vocal performance is laughably bad, in a Sid Vicious without the tiny bit of nihilistic coolness factor that even a cockface like Sid can achieve, but this one, for me, works. I even get a bit annoyed when James' puts in for a bit of vocal action. Who knew!
Miss Europa Disco Dancer, on the other hand, sucks balls. Musically it's a bad rehash of the more dancey Smiths tracks like Barbarism Begins At Home with added Beegees, and lyrically, its a bad rehash of The Smiths Death Of A Disco Dancer. A boring critique of the dance music scene, obviously written to appeal to the bands more indier-than-thou rockist fans, it would have been a good bside, but as it is, its just a little out of place and annoying. And that chant of 'braindead motherfuckers' is AWFULLY LAME. Blurgh.
Dead Martyrs, despite its rubbish and nonsensical title, not too shabby. A nice post-punkish dirgy Magazine-alike romp with a few synth bleeps and bursts, again unlike much that the band have really done before. Nothing amazing, but worthwhile. His Last Painting is similarly lightweight-yet-enjoyable. Midpaced, almost demo-like in its simplicity, a nice fuzzed up solo and its done.
My Guernica is compleeetely covered in fuzz. Nice trashcan drums, a bit of distorted vocal, and an awful Eliot quoting lyric go together with a chorus that isn't as good as it thinks it is to make a song thats as moderately enjoyable as the last few. James howls like a monkey, a dog barks, Nicky picks up a phone, there's a crap coda, and the mainstream audience are suitably confused. No wonder this record is so often criticised of being overlong/underedited really.
The Convalescent. What's this? Manics in Sonic Youth tribute rockathon? No shit! That opening riff is Thurstonic by any other name, and although 6 minutes of this stuff is a bit too much to handle, and again the lyrics aren't up to much (at all), and yet its relatively enjoyable. You even get the line 'Brian Warner has a tasty little ass', which is just too good not to enjoy. I think. Hey! The Sonic Youth bit comes back at the end! Why couldn't the whole album have had that guitar tone on it eh? I dont know whether its the production, or the relatively undevelopedness of this last run of songs, but they're just so much more enjoyable than the glossy-Manics-on-auto songs on Truth that I can forgive the rubbishness of the lyrics and lack of hooks. Maybe i'm just in a good mood today? Anyway. Time to go buy a Christmas tree. Imagine a one or two hour gap in this review....NOW!
Lovely. Since when do christmas trees make your hands sting? Royal Correspondent has a great chorus melody which becomes irrelevant in the face of the most annoying Nicky lyric since SYMM. Sean's drumming is all over the place and works kinda well, but the overall impression isn't a good one. It's too long by 3 minutes, 31 seconds. Epicentre is another obscure, almost interesting little song that definitely could do with a LOT of trimming. 6 and a half minutes of dull indie rock, at track 14, is not needed on an already long album. And then there's a weird funny thing at the end that sounds like they're singing 'Happy Birthday Susan Summers', but as I don't know a Susan in my family, I don't know whether to take offence or just be bored.
As with the last album, they saved the worst song for (almost) last. Baby Elian is a cackhanded piece of arse. Bad melodies, bad lyrics, baddy badbadbad. Billy Bragg at his worst was never this predictable or plain boring. Oops. They did actually leave the worst until last. Freedom Of Speech Won't Feed My Children is as hackneyed and predictable as its title. Remember when the Manics used to leave one of the best songs on each album until the end? I miss those crazy, glittered covered years. Happy daaays. But wait! Whats this? The Manics first ever extra specal bonus track? And a cover? Of McCarthy? Oh! But alas, it's not 1% as good as the original, but still better than Baby Elian. Mmmmm I lurve McCarthy. Okay then!
That's the end. Overall opinion? Too long, but surprisingly enjoyable. The singles again, are shit, and the most apparently fillerish songs again contain the most enjoyable bits. Silly Manics. Want to see some videos? Are you sure?
Found That Soul (music video)
Found That Soul (live CDUK)
Found That Soul (live Later)
Found That Soul (live Bizarre 2001)
Ocean Spray (music video)
Ocean Spray (live TOTP)
Ocean Spray (live Glastonbury 2003)
Ocean Spray (live CDUK)
Ocean Spray (live Later)
So Why So Sad (music video)
So Why So Sad (live TOTP)
So Why So Sad (live CDUK)
Let Robeson Sing (music video)
Let Robeson Sing (live TOTP)
Let Robeson Sing (live Later
And here are some songs from the album. Enjoy.
Manic Street Preachers - Intravenous Agnostic
Manic Street Preachers - Wattsville Blues
Manic Street Preachers - Let Robeson Sing (Ian Brown Remix)
Manic Street Preachers - The Convalescent
Discography: (click to buy @ amazon.co.uk)
posted by Jamie Summers at 11:06 AM
2 Comments:
First post I've disagreed with totally (bar a few tracks). Ocean Spray is possibly the best post Holy Bible Manics track.
Freedom of Speech and Baby Eilan are actually what Generation Terrorists should have sounded like when it was getting political.
Found That Soul is an absolute stormer of an opener.
Let Robeson Sing? I wish they had!
Ahthankyouverymuch, imhereallweek
Intravenous Agnostic - only decent song they've done all century.
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