Welsh rock legends Manic Street Preachers have unveiled more details of their forthcoming album ‘Journal For Plague Lovers’.
The group formed in Blackwood, a small mining town in Wales. Deeply affected by the Miner’s Strike, the band’s uncompromising socialist stance and gender bending appearance made them instant cult favourites.
Promising to sell twelve million copies of their debut album and then split up, Manic Street Preachers are still here more than fifteen years later. However, the band’s mercurial guitarist and lyricist Richey Edwards is not with them, having gone missing in 1995.
The Welsh musician was legally declared dead by his family last year, and the band themselves seem finally able to deal with Edward’s legacy. Forthcoming album ‘Journal For Plague Lovers’ uses lyrics left behind by the tragic star.
The band had previously hinted that some of the notebooks Edwards left behind were more extreme than ‘The Holy Bible’ – the group’s celebrated 1994 album which is renowned for its disturbed content.
Amongst the song titles on the new album are ‘Jackie Collins Existential Question Time’ and ‘She Bathed Herself In A Bath Of Bleach’. Clearly, this will be no ordinary rock album.
In a statement, Nicky Wire said: “The brilliance and intelligence of the lyrics dictated that we had to finally use them.
“The use of language is stunning and topics include Le Grande Odalisque by Ingres, Marlon Brando, Giant Haystacks, celebrity, consumerism and dysmorphia all reiterating the genius and intellect of Richard James Edwards.”
Manic Street Preachers are due to release their new album ‘Journal For Plague Lovers’ on May 18th. Full tracklisting is as follows:
‘Peeled Apples’
‘Jackie Collins Existential Question Time’
‘Me And Stephen Hawking’
‘This Joke Sport Severed’
‘Journal For Plague Lovers’
‘She Bathed Herself In A Bath Of Bleach’
‘Facing Page: Top Left’
‘Marlon J.D.’
‘Doors Closing Slowly’
‘All Is Vanity’
‘Pretension/Repulsion’
‘Virginia State Epileptic Colony’
‘William’s Last Words’
