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In August 1994, Manic Street Preachers released
The Holy Bible, a dark, fiercely intelligent album that explored such themes as mental illness, murder and war. Richey Edwards, the band's lyricist and motive force, vanished five months later; he was never found. In his absence
The Holy Bible entered the rock canon alongside Joy Division's
Closer and Nirvana's
In Utero, the valedictory works of troubled young men.
This book tells the dramatic story of Manic Street Preachers' masterpiece. Tracing the album's origins in the Valleys, an industrialised region of South Wales where the band spent their formative years, the author argues that
The Holy Bible can be seen as a meditation on the uses and abuses of history.
List of contents
Track Listing
Prologue
Introduction
Scars
The bigger things
Things can only get better
This is yesterday
Machines
Into the black
Portals
Forever delayed
Epilogue
About the author
David Evans is a freelance arts journalist based in London, specializing in literature, music and film. He writes regularly for national and international publications including
FT Weekend, The Independent, the
Times Literary Supplement, and
Sight & Sound.
Summary
In August 1994, Manic Street Preachers released The Holy Bible, a dark, fiercely intelligent album that explored such themes as mental illness, murder and war. Richey Edwards, the band’s lyricist and motive force, vanished five months later; he was never found. In his absence The Holy Bible entered the rock canon alongside Joy Division’s Closer and Nirvana’s In Utero, the valedictory works of troubled young men.
This book tells the dramatic story of Manic Street Preachers' masterpiece. Tracing the album's origins in the Valleys, an industrialised region of South Wales where the band spent their formative years, the author argues that The Holy Bible can be seen as a meditation on the uses and abuses of history.
Foreword
This book tells the story of the development of The Holy Bible and the subsequent disappearance of Manic Street Preachers' chief architect, Richey Edwards, by tracing the album's roots to the historical and political circumstances surrounding South Wales during the band's formative years.
Additional text
What a thing of beauty this book is. I love how as well as describing the song recording process and band chronology it also reads around the album, interrogating literary works thoughtfully and looking for threads to pull. It made me see the music in new ways.
