1) The Everlasting; 2) If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next; 3) You Stole the Sun from My Heart; 4) Ready for Drowning; 5) Tsunami; 6) My Little Empire; 7) I'm Not Working; 8) You're Tender and You're Tired; 9) Born a Girl; 10) Be Natural; 11) Black Dog on My Shoulder; 12) Nobody Loved You; 13) S.Y.M.M.
Manics embrace introspectivity, go personal, lock up in the studio and explore new ways to craft songs. It's worlds apart from anything that came before but it's what everything has built up to so far.
Key tracks: "If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next", "Ready for Drowning", "Black Dog on My Shoulder"
In 1998, my ten-year-old self enjoyed music a whole load but only songs with a kicking beat and a high BPM count. Eurodance was the best thing in the world, current radio hit compilations were about the only albums I owned and the skip button was used heavily for any song that sounded sad or was, worst of all, slow. Then the wordily titled "If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next" appeared on TV and besides the slightly unsettling video and the mouthful of a title, what struck out the most was how spellbinding the song was even though it defied every single one of the established rules of Good Music I had. The song's melancholy penetrated through the language barrier but it sounded powerful and captivating, and its melody and songwriting were hypnotising even if next to the more comfortable high-energy dance cuts I was used to, it was practically a dirge. I don't want to be too embarrasingly personal or build up my own personal mythology too much, but sometimes you need to and with this album I absolutely must. "If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next" and This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours changed the way I viewed and listened to music, and it opened the world for me to discover aspects of music I would have automatically dismissed before - a few years later and it had started to shape my budding music collection, after I had fallen in love with the concept of moody guys with guitars. This is a defining record of my life, and probably the defining record, and I wanted to bring that up at this stage so that you can adjust your bias lenses accordingly regarding the rest of this ramble.
"If You Tolerate This" wasn't a typical Manic Street Preachers single, and as a follow-up to their chart-topper record it was a whiplash. All things considered the Manics should have felt triumphant after the wide-scale breakthrough of Everything Must Go given how they had always wanted to be a big rock band, and for a little while they did enjoy basking in the spotlight and reaping the rewards of their unexpected success. But massive highs tend to be followed by a comedown. Compared to its anthemic predecessor it took a completely different route, and in retrospect it's a surprise it found listeners in the same way - if anything, the hype train got even bigger as "If You Tolerate This" caused ripples across Europe and pushed the band further after conquering the UK the last time around. Following the stadium rock glory of Everything Must Go the Manics decided to unexpectedly move further inwards, retreating into an introspective space within the confinements of the studio where the band now had the means and the budget to do whatever they wanted.
By this point Manics had been many things already - often bold, boisterous and loud - but never had they been so melancholy and so quiet as on This Is My Truth, and the main credit for that goes to Nicky Wire. Everything Must Go still featured some of his former co-lyricist Richey Edwards' words in a posthumous fashion, and so This Is My Truth was the first time Wire had to take on the responsibility of the band's lyrical (and by proxy, thematical) direction fully on top of his own shoulders. Everything Must Go had already introduced a more introspective, contemplative direction for Wire as without Edwards' mad creativity he struggled with his place in the band and the world, and found himself tuning onto those feelings in his lyrics. This Is My Truth became an extension for that direction. The band's former political lean became a sidetract, a side flavouring for the world where the center was Wire himself: still lost, still full of self-doubt and obsessed about ruminating on time, legacy and even identity.
It's with This Is My Truth where Wire really finds his own voice as a lyricist. As any fan can attest Wire has always been very fond of talking about himself, and while it's not in the way he probably intended, as a lyricist that's exactly where his strengths lie instead of his political aspirations. Wire has rarely opened up about any greater mental health issues of his, but he's a man frequently obsessed by his own past and who views the present day through that yearning nostalgia, and who then opens himself up to various insecurities and doubt while doing so. The likes of "This Is Yesterday" during the quartet years already hinted at this, but following Richey's disappearance that instict really took over and following the initial reflections on Everything Must Go, Wire's full lyrical debut on This Is My Truth was to open up on those feelings even further - and he finally takes the leap from an interesting lyricist to a great one. He's a contemplative writer who frequently sees the world around him as an extension of his own identity, and in his lyrics he frequently tries to reconcile the two, reflecting on himself and the context surrounding him in various degrees of uncertainty: by "Born a Girl" he's downright regretting his entire self. Bar the odd clunky simile he can't avoid, Wire's words have heft and resonance throughout and they're consistently great, which given how much of a fuss the band had made about their lyrics by this point does genuinely matter. The closing "S.Y.M.M." is the testament of Wire's skill on This Is My Truth: it's a song about trying to reflect on something so terrible that you can't put it into words and that writing a song about it is impossible (namely, the Hillsborough disaster), and the combination of the words and Bradfield's performance really sells the tragedy behind the quirky concept; and it leads to the simple, blunt chorus to sound like it's quietly holding back pure rage whenever it appears.
Rather than fight against the sadness like with the previous album, this time Bradfield and Moore - who would write to Wire's lyrics rather than the other way around - corresponded to it. This Is My Truth begins with the quiet drum machine countdown of "The Everlasting" and the song never quite explodes even if the strings start swelling dramatically by its end; it's a torchsong that refuses to become one and keeps chaining itself to the ground, sounding little more hopeless each time it does. It's a signifier of the change of pace, with songs averaging around 5-6 minutes, full of small but crucial sonic details and often advancing at a patient, slow pace. The band are treating the studio as an instrument of its own, and that means two things. One is a more layered sound, with far more guest instruments than before, always utilised to create something memorable and remarkable: signature elements such as the church organ of "Ready for Drowning", the ghostly electric sitar of "I'm Not Working" and the iconic distorted organ stab racing through "If You Tolerate This", and keyboards and pianos are now a regular part of the sound. When the band's signature string sections are present, they rarely rest still acting pretty: in particular the orchestral harmony of "Black Dog on My Shoulder" is, no contest, the finest appearance of strings in the Manics catalogue, as they swivel back and forth, crescendoing with the extended instrumental outro, surrounding the band with a majestically elegiac power. It makes an already classy song into something truly regal - among the deep sonics of the album it sounds the most rooted into the room you are in right now, and then the orchestral section elevates it into high heavens by its closing crescendo.
The other defining element of This Is My Truth is the use of space within the sound. This Is My Truth most often sounds like it's played in grand halls or churches, a giant sound reverberating within wide booming walls, each instrument and sound given a place to breathe despite the layers in arrangement. "I'm Not Working" takes this the most extreme, with the space being the defining element of the song as its sparse lead melodies float and echo into a forever, Bradfield's worn-out vocals existing for brief moments of time in the center of the universe the band are floating in. Most of the album doesn't quite go that far, but that vastness is used beautifully throughout: to create an intimate surrounding in the vulnerable and broken "Born a Girl" and the bitter and defeated "My Little Empire", to accentuate the majestic ascends of "Be Natural", or to twist the barely-in-control rage of "S.Y.M.M." into something otherworldly. This Is My Truth doesn't really show off with its production - despite the elements at play it's actually surprisingly down to earth in its fidelity - but its breathing space lends its melancholy a veneer of grace and beauty. Despite everything it's restful in its autumnal solitude, rather than dark and brooding.
The ability to grow the arrangements beyond the core of the band allows Bradfield to also really push forward with his melodic skills. Bradfield always was the musical centrepiece of the Manics: for most of the band's history he had been the man responsible for more or less every musical flourish while juggling how to perform the songs live where he had to pull most of the weight. On This Is My Truth he took the chance to explore other avenues, letting his talent for arrangement shine from one instrument to another, no longer wanting to rely fully on his guitar or leading each song onto the mandatory stand-off solo. A few times throughout the album he lets his own signature instrument fade away from spotlight nearly completely, such as on "I'm Not Working" where the guitar's sparse melodies barely act as the glue in the ether, and on the uncharacteristically delicate, piano-lead "You're Tender and You're Tired". His passion for each song having an iconic, distinct hook is still well alive but thanks to the new possibilities, former could-be straightforward anthems like "Be Natural" are taken to wholly new realms of possibilities sonically and quite frankly elevated: "Be Natural" was originally considered the album's lead single and its transformation of the traditional Manics anthem into something stargazing and dream-like would have been an effective statement of intent in its own right. Bradfield is clearly having a field day exploring new territories musically and it has a knock-on effect to his songwriting: he's bringing out a classic melody after another here, from each verse and chorus to any bridge, breakdown and extended outro (which he's still handing out abundantly like on Everything Must Go, but now in more varieties than just louder guitars) he can conjure
This Is My Truth still erupts in guitars from time to time and when it does, it feels more meaningful as the album's established sound world is shaken up. The liberated noise of Bradfield's guitars exploding is the catharsis for the slow-burning emotion elsewhere, allowing those feelings to burst out. "Ready for Drowning" and "Nobody Loved You" in particular act as the album's vital heartbeats - the former's walls of noise are the musical representation of the waves in the song's lyrical imagery, burying history underneath its sound, and "Nobody Loved You" starts the trend of now traditional token Richey songs with a wistful, dynamic purge of emotion dressed up as an arena anthem, a last tearjerking rage into the night. "You Stole the Sun from My Heart" and "Tsunami" on the other hand are the needed breaks from the rest of the album's tone: both in subject (one a disguised hate letter for extended touring, the other one of Wire's frequent lyrical biographies of whoever he's read about recently, this time The Silent Twins), as well as in sound with a more outwardly oriented direction. They're the nods to the audience that the band picked up with the last album, but tailored into a format that doesn't sound out of place or condescending: both, and especially the delicately presenting but slyly storming "Tsunami" that really showcases its muscular vibrancy by the time the band build it back up from the quiet middle eight, are among the band's best out-and-out rockers.
They are all incredible songs - full of resonance, melodic strength and detail in arrangement, each one with the potential to be breathtaking or the most vital thing in the existence when the world calls for it. I could write a paragraph on each (and I have elsewhere) if it wasn't unbearable to read through. But "If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next" is still above them all. It's a masterpiece of a song, with every second bringing something immortal: from the alien distorted organ sound swirling through it, to one iconic line after another (and the first verse alone is one hell of an opening segment which signals straightaway you're in for something grand), the hi-hat heavy beat shuffling through the song in a way that highlights the brilliance of Sean Moore as a drummer who knows the perfect beat to each song, and the organ of the chorus amping up the tender sadness of the song. Everything from about 2:30, when the second chorus ends, leaves me completely disarmed: the guitar solo, the greatest-of-all-time bridge, the last chorus full of desperation and defiance, the extended finale where James lets his wordless vocals race around the air because no words can be enough anymore. It never fails to give me chills down my back. It's probably my favourite song of all time? It certainly feels like no other song and has more importance than anything else, no matter how many times over the years I've heard it it always hits me in full force.
This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours is a special record. It transcends the standard ways I evaluate albums simply because it's become such an integral part of who I am as a person and as a music listener: it's the clear watermark between how I interacted music before it, and afterwards. It taught me things about myself and music as a phenomenon. It taught me that lyrics can matter, even when I could barely speak English; but I mimed those words without understanding what I meant, and piece by piece and word by word understanding what they stood for (and I have James to thank about how I continue pronounce "genuine"). It taught me that details matter, that tiny moments can bring forth great experiences within music. It taught me not everything hits at 100% immediately: unlocking This Is My Truth was a slow process because of my childhood hang-ups but the songs I balked at in the first instance later became close favourites. It is quite literally an album that has stood with me from the beginning of what I consider the start of me as a devoted music listener, and the only way I can judge it against anything else is by considering it as the high example of what I compare my other 10/10 albums against, that if something can come close to the visceral emotional resonance this has then it is a sign of something special.
For Manics too, it's become a pinnacle of their career. They would go on to do many amazing things since, some even coming so very close to this one that my old self had active debates on which I'd prefer, and in terms of pure style it's not something I would consider as the purest distillation of what Manics are about. But it's the moment where everything clicked together perfectly without any of the quirks and ifs and buts which always have a habit of appearing with this band; where the musicianship, the songwriting, the lyricism, the performance and the production all meet in perfect balance to create a cohesive, unified statement that's both a set of 13 incredible songs as well as an hour-long showcase for three musicians at the peak of their creative imperial phase. Introspectivity has always suited the Manics but they're often hesitant to acknowledge it because it often clashes with their instinctual desire for grand, anthemic heights: for once in their lifetime, they married the two sides together perfectly.
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