Review Summary: Under Neon Loneliness, CHAPTER 9: “What If a Married Man Fucks a Catholic…?”
A crunching bass groove gives way to crashing and thundering drums. From the left channel, a bleak and dark guitar teams up by the beat until you become smothered in prosaic slogans that extend from deeply meaningful (“The Levi jeans have always/been stronger than the Uzi”) to the downright preposterous (“Falcons attack the pigeons/In the West Wing at night”). Out of nowhere, that booming chorus comes from overhead and drops line after line of acidic misanthropy onto your discomforted mind.
If “Peeled Apples” is anything to go off of,
Journal for Plague Lovers is likely going to be
The Holy Bible, part II. In true Manic’s fashion, it isn’t.
When Richey Edwards made his quiet disappearance in early 1995, he did so with only the occasional hint, the strongest and darkest without a doubt being the gifting of his rambling writings, dubbed ‘The Forbidden Diaries’ by Simon Price, to now chief lyricist Nicky Wire. Elements of it were contained amongst B-Sides and aspects of
Everything Must Go (Most notably that of hit single “Kevin Carter”), but it wasn’t until they were set to song in 2009 that the world would finally get to inspect the inner workings of Richey Edwards, and as can be expected, the wounds are grim.
Edwards’ was known for his share of vulgar and controversial lyrics and
Journal is no exception. On “Jackie Collins Existential Question Time”, Edwards tosses up the question of “if a married man ***s a catholic/and his wife dies without knowing/does that make him unfaithful?”. On “Me and Stephen Hawking”, he seemingly compares his own sexual confusion with that of a quadriplegic vegetable, while “She Bathed Herself in a Bath of Bleach” speaks for itself. All the while however, the songwriting team of Bradfield/Moore do little more than juxtapose these themes with bright, raw pop. Noticeably absent are tracks in the vein of “Mausoleum” and “Archives of Pain”, instead the formula seems flipped- with demented ideologies goes glistening, up-tempo rock, with only “All Is Vanity” and the earlier mentioned “Peeled Apples” serving to take balls to the wall in tensile fashion.
And in that remains the charm of
Journal. Of course it’s the successor to
The Holy Bible, but it never mimics it nor takes it for a nostalgia ride. There’s a rejuvenating nature to the post-punk bounce of “Marlon JD” that wouldn’t have existed had it sounded anything like “Faster”- the same can be said of thankfully not turning the beautiful final farewell to Edwards on “William’s Last Words” into an industrial clutter bomb (hidden track “Bag Lady” instead does that). It’s darkly defined, but in thankfully much a different way.
The cynicism to dislike this album so readily is thankfully, 5 years later, not apparent. Actions like the “Bag Lady” hidden track, going for Steve Albini to produce and exchanging grimy flat sounds for full and charming pop are now virtues and not criticisms.
Send Away the Tigers may have put the Manic’s back on the map but
Journal for Plague Lovers was certainly the album that proved the bands worth in the 21st century.
NEXT: “Crushed Any Happiness You Knew…”
