Rock : Manic Street Preachers - Manchester

The Guardian

October 18 1994

IF EMPTY intellectualism has been etched on pop's calling card, there has always been the odd renegade determined to transform rock into an intelligent medium.

Manic Street Preachers appear to be the current advocates, riddling the songs on their latest collection, The Holy Bible, with a gallery of cultural icons - from Plath to Pinter, Lenin to Le Pen.

On stage, of course, the moronic inferno of guitar and battery quickly drowns out such detail but it hardly seems to matter. If the Manics assume the mantle of thinking men in the recording studio, they mount the catwalk of cacophony and become rock and roll terrorists, the Clash with higher education.

At Manchester Academy, there was only one short-lived respite from a sequence of jagged, furious strikes - PCP, Revol, Slash 'n' Burn and Faster - when the brooding nihilism of From Despair To Where and the exquisite street existentialism of Motorcycle Emptiness unfolded.

Along the way, though, they confirmed what an effective unit the classic four -piece can be - no space to waste, no time to lose, a steel curtain of noise coloured by James Dean Bradfield's economic yet sublime guitar figures.

The fact Bradfield also had to deliver a raw vocal to accompany every staccato attack was almost beyond the call of duty, but with the assertive drumming of Sean Moore and the taut but uninhibited playing of bassist Nicky Wire and guitarist Richey James, he had impressive enough cover.

The encore was less engaging. The frontman returned solo to busk a throwaway version of Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head. A Situationist gesture? A stab in Burt Bacharach's back? Perhaps a moment for eye make-up to be restored backstage?

Normal service was soon resumed, with Yes and the new single, She Is Suffering, reminding us that a metal grit envelopes the grey matter of the group's lyric sheet.