Know Your Enemy

by

Manic Street Preachers

Edit

The Manic Street Preachers might be the most aptly named band I've ever heard. They've always been a bit too smart for the States, and that might explain why "Know Your Enemy", their most American radio-friendly album to date, won't get much airplay here. Well, that, and the theme of the album, which is a wonderfully scathing indictment of the Americanization of the world.

The first two singles, "Found that Soul" and "So why So sad" make a nice introduction to the album - calling up the ghosts of Joe Strummer and Brian Wilson respectively. "Year of Purification" might be the best song REM never wrote.

Although I'd probably get smashed over the head with something if I ever mentioned it in front of the Manics, this album reminds me, above all else, of U2's "Achtung Baby". Not so much as the album sounds like U2, but that it seems like a radical re-working of a band, a new direction, embracing irony, maturity, and technology. Listening to "Miss Europa Disco Dancer" or "Wattsville Blues" makes me think of, well, "Zooropa" and "Numb".

The standouts, though, on the first few listenings of the album are the final two 'proper' tracks - "Baby Elian" and "Freedom of Speech Won't Feed My Children". It's strange to hear a perspective of the Elian debacle that so closely matches my own, considering that I actually live in Florida, and I don't think that these Brits have ever even visited the State that threw the election.

The Manics will probably never live up to the frenzied brilliance of "The Holy Bible", and they might never again capture the earnestness of "Everything Must Go", but "Know Your Enemy" is still better than 99% of the music you'll hear on the radio today.

For an ostensibly political band, MSP didn't seem to have much meaningful to say. Their political points seem simplistic and are stated with something less than depth and intelligence. Their views are their views -- this is not a critique of their politics. But I've heard their political points made much more convincingly on other discs. I guess Nicky Wire just isn't the thinker that Richey Edwards was.

As far as the tunes go, I've heard better and worse. Some songs are interestingly crafted and really quite attractive; others shouldn't have been released. I thought the disc quite uneven, sometimes trying.

This set seems a sort of step backwards for an important band. It makes me wonder if they didn't lose something more than a band member when Richey went away -- or at least that MSP might have now put a little too much distance between themselves and that formative time to attempt a "return to their roots", as this album is sometimes billed.