Manic Street Preachers: Forever Delayed : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

One of the best british rock bands of the Nineties made no more impression on the United States than the poll-tax riots. But if you're new to the Manic Street Preachers, Forever Delayed is a fine crash course. The syllabus: The Manics emerged from Wales in 1991, full of revolutionary slogans and punk vinegar. Despite vowing that all bands should break up after one album, they stayed together -- even after lyricist-guitarist Richey James disappeared in 1995, a presumed suicide (which made their hit cover of "Suicide Is Painless [Theme From M*A*S*H]" a bit too prescient). Their music evolved from the punk attack of "You Love Us" to soaring ballads with oblique lyrics, more often about politics than love. The band's finest moment remains 1998's gorgeous "If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next" -- a rueful song about pacifism and the Spanish Civil War -- but these twenty tracks are as consistent as the British rain.

GAVIN EDWARDS
(RS 914 – January 3, 2003)