Manic Street Preachers - The Holy Bible (CD 1997)

The album is the best 1 they have done without a doubt.The american 1 sounds more crunchy than this 1.The japanese has the 4 extra live tracks.Its rated in the tpo hundred albums of all time.

"I wanted to rub the human face in its own vomit and then force it
to look in the mirror."

The last Manic Street Preachers album released before the mysterious
disappearance of lyricist Richie Edwards, The Holy Bible is filled
with raw emotion. Viewed by some as a lengthy suicide note set to
music, it is certainly one of the most depressing albums you're ever
likely to hear.

Richey Edwards and Nicky Wire were certainly both genuinely very
depressed when they wrote the album's lyrics, and this album conveys
their feelings in a painfully vivid manner. Songs about topics such
as anorexia and self harm are certainly a change from mainstream
music's acceptable themes of love and sex, or even the official
alternative of naive, undirected angst. While they present no answers
to society's inherent problems, they articulate those problems, as
well as their own, eloquently.

James Dean Bradfield and Sean Moore take these lyrics and try their
best to wrap them around their music. Listening to the result gives
the impression that they sometimes had trouble making the words fit
the actual tunes, but thankfully it also gives the impression that
they got their meaning. A far cry from the Manic Street Preachers's
previous two albums, which pair similarly depressing lyrics with
deceptively catchy tunes, The Holy Bible features music that completely
resonates with the lyrics, making a cohesive whole. This is aggressive
rock music, hard to digest on the first listen but certainly a grower.
It's about as close as you can get to the raw feeling of anger and
desperation.

The only peaceful break from the otherwise relentless abrasive rock
music is in This Is Yesterday and Die in the Summertime, towards the
end of the album, which are filled with a wistful sound and lyrics
about regret and resignation at the futility of everything.

Overall, this album is intense and powerful. While the songs aren't
exactly catchy, they sound genuine and straight from the heart. If
you're deeply depressed, The Holy Bible is something you're quite
likely to resonate with. Otherwise, it probably sounds like angry
noise. Either way, you have to admit that albums with such intensity
and stark honesty are rare.

'The Holy Bible', first and foremost, is not for the feint hearted. It is a political, religious, at times nihilistic leap into a troubled mind. Unlike previous albums, Richey James Edwards is the main lyricist - writing freely on love, life and death - with lead singer James Dean Bradfield perfectly adopting Edwards' poetic words and making them his own, with peculiar phrasing resulting in extreme syllabic extension, followed by extensive sentences shoved into tiny gaps - all of which adds to the album's impenetrable appeal. As for the songs, each is unique, and yet they are all fast-paced and all interconnected. The intriguingly named 'Ifwhiteamericatoldthetruthforonedayitsworldwouldfallapart' is seemingly an attack on today's predominantly rich, white society, whilst 'Die In The Summertime' is a graphic hatred of life. Singles 'She Is Suffering' and 'Faster' are predictably more accessible, but that by no means degrades their content; both being matt black in colour and infinite in size. The spoken intro to 'Of Walking Abortion' is a haunting reminder of Edwards' unstable state - on February 1st 1995, he disappeared and is yet to be found. Ironically, his disappearance boosted sales, and likenesses with Kurt Cobain fuelled inevitable comparisons with Nirvana's epic In Utero. But even without the added mistique of Edwards' tragic disappearance, this album is a cavernous hole of thoughts and fears... an album of ugly honestly, set to a modern-day backdrop. To quote the excerpt from the back cover, "You live attached to moral and social conventions you despise... that's the poisoned and mortal wound of the civilized world".