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THIS IS MY TRUTH TELL ME YOURS by the Manic Street Preachers Go Brit Pop! Well, sort of Brit Pop. The Manics I guess might have been brit punk once. But that was then, and this is the new album. The first single, If You Tolerate..., was the first time I have ever heard the Manics, who first came to my attention when their last album, "Everything Must Go", made it to number 3 in that Q magazine best albums of all time poll. So who were these guys? Apart from writing a song about it, they don't seem to be interested in conquering Australia. Until now. Well I must admit I bought this album because it was a bargain. First, you get a free T-Shirt. Second, you get a pass to meet James Dean Bradfield, the vocalist/guitarist. Plus, David Lane had been giving me rabve reviews about them. So, like I did with You Am I, They Might Be Giants and Pavement before, I forked over thirty dollars for a band I only know one song of. That song was of course, If You Tolerate..., whose stunning film clip I saw on Rage. I knew little about them but reading up on them I've been fascinated by what I found out. The song Nobody Loved You is an ode to former main member Richie who, as most people know, dissappeared without a trace a few years back. The band still keeps a quarter of their earnings for him, in case he comes back. The magnificient Born A Girl is an honest recollection of bassist Nick Jones' non-gay cross-dressing experiences. S.Y.M.M. stands for South Yorkshire Mass Murderer, and is a condemnation of the police action taken at the South Yorkshire soccer tragedy. If You Tolerate... is about apathy, and how generations past would go out in the streets to defend their beliefs, and how such spontaneous sacrifice has been lost in this day and age. But despite the heavy lyrics, these are great songs. This is indeed a heavy album. The production is rock solid, the sound is exceptional. All the effects fit in perfectly. The songs hit hard, most of them anyway. Bradfield's voice soars in sings like You Stole The Sun From My Heart, but on songs like S.Y.M.M., where he similarly excels, it doesn't quite hit the mark. But there are enough great songs on this album to make it worth the admission price. At the moment, they are the only reason I want to go to the Big Day Out. This is a great album and I hope it does big things for them outside the UK.
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