Manic Street Preachers - 'Forever Delayed' (Epic)
5/5
By: Matt Tomiak
How very, very appropriate. As fabulously contradictory and provocative as ever, the Manics have successfully managed to spark a furious debate over their latest, new 'Greatest Hits' album - traditionally a band's predictable and safe, end-of-career cash-cow. Not MSP, though. That the Welsh trio can incite debate so enraged over this 20-track retrospective is in itself testimony to their supreme musical heritage.
Yes - some sterling tracks have been omitted, however; it'd take a brave soul to maintain that 'The Everlasting' is worthy of inclusion over, say, the ever-glorious 'Stay Beautiful'. But to claim, as some so vocally have, that the band are attempting to exorcise their past, is quite frankly ridiculous.
... OK, it'd have been nice to bear a few more representatives of 'The Holy Bible' era, but with 'Motorcycle Emptiness', 'Motown Junk', 'You Love Us' and 'Faster' admirably fighting the corner for the group's formative stages, it's not as though anyone's attempting to suggest the Manics debuted with 'A Design For Life'. Regardless of their quality, it's a fact too that the trio achieved their biggest chart successes with singles from 'Everything Must Go' and beyond. And, after all, this is not - as James Dean Bradfield was at pains to point out in a recent interview - a Best Of collection, but a representation of the mammoth act's most substantial chart successes.
From this perspective, then - remarkable, obstinate, brilliant: 'Forever Delayed' is just another chapter in the story of a band who are rarely anything less than utterly fascinating.
Artists in this article: Manic Street Preachers
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