Manic Street Preachers: Journal for Plague Lovers

Richey Edwards was the creative driving force in Manic Street Preachers until his disappearance in 1995. He left behind screeds of notes, ideas and lyrics, now these rough outlines have been given new life. It’s the most incisive Manics album for years but a few songs could never match their scrawled annotations (‘the idea was to write music inspired by Rush then pretend we were Magazine playing it’ is far more exciting that the title track turns out).

It must have been an incredibly personal album to construct and the emotion is obvious in every track (particularly the poignant ‘William’s Last Words’ sung by Nicky Wire) but unfortunately it could never live up to the power of The Holy Bible or the myth of Richey Edwards.

(Columbia)