Manic Street Preachers - Rewind The Film (Album Review)
Monday, 16 September 2013
Written by Simon Ramsay
“I don't want my children to grow up like me, it's too soul destroying, it's a mocking disease.” The sombre opening line to the 11th studio album of Manic Street Preachers' career sets the tone for a collection of beautifully bleak, introspective songs. If 'The Holy Bible' reflected the darkest depths of Richie Edwards' troubled psyche, 'Rewind The Film' is a portal into the beaten, bruised and belligerent soul of an ageing Nicky Wire.
The Manics have never taken the easy road, always subverting expectations and reinventing themselves. From the venomous post-punk attack of 'The Holy Bible' to 'Everything Must Go' and its zeitgeist-straddling anthems, via a meeting with Fidel Castro and the near career suicide of Lifeblood, the band never play it safe.
It's a trend that continues on 'Rewind The Film', an album devoid of James Dean Bradfield's characteristic power chords and screaming solos. The gorgeous compositions are primarily acoustic, with sweeping orchestration, rousing horn sections and shimmering electronica adding emotional resonance where required.
This Sullen Welsh Heart typifies the albums sparse aesthetic. Tender backing vocals from Lucy Rose add ethereal sadness to a folk lament that sees Wire wrestling with his inability to quit fighting despite numerous defeats.
The typically intelligent, cutting and honest lyrics make 'Rewind The Film' feel like a singer-songwriter album as Wire mines the same terrors of the human condition as Nick Drake and Tom McRae. Having reached a point in his life where he's looking backwards, this is a haunted mid-life crisis set to music, flooded with bleary-eyed nostalgia and brutal self-analysis.
No songs epitomise that better than Running Out Of Fantasy and 3 Ways To Despair. The former finds Wire counting the cost of his beliefs and their failure to actualise: “The obsession with change has bled me dry, my fantasy forever locked inside.” The latter broods as Bradfield sings: “Can you save someone from the hidden depths, of a darkened soul with no hope left?”
The album's overarching theme revolves around detachment from the present day. Tokyo Skyline blissfully embraces anonymity while Rewind The Film – a romantic, string-soaked duet with Richard Hawley – pines for a return to younger days as Hawley croons: “There is so much heartache, in the nothing of the now.” On its own the duet seems more like a Hawley track, but within the context of the album it fits like a glove.
Fans always look for references to Richie Edwards and it's no surprise that on such a reflective record there are some heartbreaking ones. As Holy As The Soil, a low key hymn whose mantra-like verses are semi-chanted by Wire, contains the tear jerking finale of: “I love you so, won't you please come home – it's been so long and I can't let go.” Builder Of Routines questions how comfortable, middle aged men can stay connected to Edwards and their youthful rock star ideals. They find the answer in their fans: “Only in you can we see ourselves...only in you can we imagine a man, so sick and so tired of being 4 Real.”
For all the contemplation, closing track 30-Year War shows there is still plenty of bite in the band as electronic waves back a vitriolic diatribe against the Tory old boy network that “won the war”. Wire bitterly admits defeat, but is determined to land one last blow before he hits the canvas.
Not everything works. Manorbier is a pointless instrumental and although Show Me The Wonder is a fantastic pop bijou with bouncing horns and a triumphant chorus, it doesn't belong on this album. A commercial trojan horse, its presence partially compromises the album's integrity and seems to signal the band's reluctance to completely commit to the kind of record they've made.
In spite of that, 'Rewind The Film' is one of the Manics' best, bravest albums. It's perfect for those whose loves, losses and despairs have caught up with them. Although dark, an overriding sense of catharsis comes from knowing that someone else is going through exactly the same struggles.
Fri September 20th 2013 - DUBLIN Olympia
Sat September 21st 2013 - BELFAST Ulster Hall Belfast
Mon September 23rd 2013 - BRISTOL Colston Hall
Tue September 24th 2013 - LONDON O2 Shepherd's Bush Empire
Fri September 27th 2013 - MANCHESTER Ritz
Sun September 29th 2013 - GLASGOW Barrowland
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