It could have been the Welsh’s ‘White Album’. An epochal work on two discs. A stylistic explosion. The triumph after the triumph. But things turned out differently. THIS IS MY TRUTH TELL ME YOURS had become the band’s most successful album two years earlier. Balladesque and melancholic, it corresponded to the zeitgeist of the late Britpop decade. The Manics didn’t like that at all. You always wanted to be punk and glam, commerce and art. A band with such a schizophrenic self-image must constantly be on the run from themselves.
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So a U-turn: The single “The Masses Against The Classes” surfed to the top of the UK charts on the circular saw in 2000. Next they wanted to prove everything with two records: that they could still be mangy dogs (SOLIDARITY), but that their thoughtful side had come to stay (DOOR TO THE RIVER). At work, both worlds merged into one. The result was called KNOW YOUR ENEMY and it was everything at once: Beach Boys, New Wave, Disco, Picasso, Punk and Politics. It was difficult to see the common thread, the noisy production also kept the heart at bay.
The new edition corrects some of these shortcomings 21 years later: The songs were remixed, the chaos on two records was broken up into the poles “loud” and “quiet”, as originally planned. A few leftover songs complete the picture. So some diamonds sparkle brighter than before: “The Year Of Purification” and “Intravenous Agnostic” as respective openers get the attention they deserve. “Found That Soul” sounds tidier and bangs even more. “Ocean Spray” is one of the band’s great singles anyway, which cannot be said of the overloaded “So Why So Sad”. No production trick will help anymore. Nonsense remains nonsense – and it is balanced here with the successful songs. Some would say: like the “White Album”.
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