Forever Delayed

When Welsh assault rock'n'rollers The Manic Street Preachers burst onto the British guitar band stage in 1992, they put the rest of the contenders to shame. In the wake of dance culture, rock bands had mostly abandoned the pure energy and subversive anger of punk and rock in favour of a laid-back hybrid of beats and murmurs. From a small town in Wales, The Manics reclaimed the purity of the form, playing their glam punk with a religious fervour. They had better clothes, slogans and interview technique than anyone since the late '70s and over two albums, '92's Generation Terrorists and '93's Gold Against The Soul, James Dean Bradfield, Richey Edwards, Nicky Wire and Sean Moore fast-tracked from cult heroes to national talking point, offending and confronting as they went and firing off brilliant anthems for the alienated.The self-destructive tendencies of guitarist Richey Edwards provided a melodramatic subplot to the music, as he progressed from carving the words 4 REAL into his arm during an interview, to his final unsolved disappearance prior to the release of '94's The Holy Bible. Like Nirvana, The Manics were always more than just another capable band, and their rise to international stadium-filling status in the aftermath of Edwards' exit has not entirely dissipated their aura.