In passato confesso di non essere mai stato un grande fan dei Manic Street Preachers, soprattutto quelli in cui militava il compianto (anche se effettivamente di lui non si conoscono le sorti) Richey ‘Manic' Edwards. Troppo epici, troppo ridondanti, il loro stile mi sembrava una sorta di neopunk barocco che me li aveva resi irrimediabilmente antipatici. Ma già nel 1996 con "Everything Must Go" e il brano "A Design For Life" le cose cambiarono.
L'enfasi dei primi tre album cedeva il posto ad un rock malinconico e intimista, cantato con grande emozione e coinvolgimento da James Dean Bradfield, senza peraltro che venisse meno l'energia e lo spirito rock della band gallese. Ecco che il nuovo corso si perfezionò con "This Is My Truth, Tell Me Yours", album capolavoro, che tra le altre, annoverava la loro più riuscita composizione di sempre: quella agrodolce torch-song "If You Tolerate This Then Your Children Will Be Next" che imperversò su tutto l'etere radiofonico nell'estate del 1998. Poi altri due album minori "Know Your Enemy" e "Lifeblood", intervallati da una raccolta di successi.
Il 2007 li vede tornare sulle scene e con circospezione mi avvicino a questo nuovo cd racchiuso in una misteriosa copertina che ritrae due procaci teenager vestite rispettivamente da angelo e diavolo entrambe con un'espressione sorniona. "Send Away The Tigers" recita il titolo... "Allontanate le tigri"... e parebbe quasi un monito rivolto verso le due fanciulle riprese nell'artwork. Il lettering adoperato e le R scritte al contrario sembrerebbero curiosamente riportare allo stile di "The Holy Bible", disco antecedente a "Everything Must Go" e considerato all'epoca un lavoro "di transizione".
Ma l'ascolto del primo brano è una sorpresa inaspettata: "Send Away The Tigers" parte con un muro di chitarre, una ritmica incalzante e un cantato straordinario in un crescente inciso, dove il ‘falsetto' di Bradfield ti sfonda letteralmente il cuore. Sono un basso pulsante e una batteria avvolgente che aprono la successiva "Underdogs", avvincente cavalcata neopunk, e la conturbante voce di Nina Persson dei Cardigans che dà linfa vitale al duetto con Bradfield nell'azzeccato singolo "Your Love Alone Is Not Enough".
Si prosegue con le due intriganti ballate glam "Indian Summer" e "The Second Great Depression" (quest'ultima molto vicina allo stile degli ottimi Mansun, band coi quali i Preachers condivisero molti palchi live nel 1998). E poi ancora il rock'n'roll grezzo - alla Stones - di "Rendition" e l'epica maestosità di "Autumnsong" che parrebbe un improbabile incrocio tra Guns‘n Roses, Queen e i T-Rex di Marc Bolan, dopo una session condivisa insieme a David Bowie e i Sex Pistols. Ancora rock stradaiolo dalle venature ‘glam' in "I'm Just A Patsy" e "Imperial Bodybags" per chiudere con la dolcezza inusuale di "Winterlovers" che, tra espolosioni ed implosioni, chiude il disco lasciando però in serbo una sorpresa nascosta esattamente a tre minuti dall'inizio del brano: una rivisitazione personale e molto ‘bluesy' del brano di John Lennon "Working Class Hero", inserito curiosamente come hidden track.
"Send Away The Tigers" è senza dubbio un capolavoro, un disco che attesta lo stato di salute e benessere di cui ancora gode il rock degli anni 2000. E va diritto nella mia playlist del 2007. Grande rispetto per i Manic Street Preachers che, nonostante alti e bassi nella loro carriera, sono tornati in una forma smagliante e come se fossero ringiovaniti di almeno dieci anni.
Altro che i Darkness!!!
Elenco tracce testi e video
02 Underdogs (02:49)
This one's for the freaks
For you're so beautiful
For all the devotion
Written in your soul
This one's for the freaks
For the lost and weak
For the butterflies and devotees
And the disciples of our destiny
And like the underdogs we are
Shining bright but now disappeared
And like the underdogs we are
Passing like some fading stars
Like some fading stars
This one's for the freaks
Beaten down and crushed
The shy and withdrawn
Or just out of touch
May you stay like freaks
May you make mistakes
May ya will never break
For underdogs revenge is sweet, revenge is sweet
And like the underdogs we are
Shining bright but now disappeared
And like the underdogs we are
Passing like some fading stars
Like some fading stars
This one's for the freaks
This one's for the freaks
People like you need to fuck
Need to fuck people like me
This one's for the freaks for the lost and weak
This one's for the freaks
03 Your Love Alone Is Not Enough (03:55)
Your love alone is not enough not enough not enough
When times get tough they get tough they get tough they get tough
Trade all your heroes in for ghosts in for ghosts in for ghosts
They're always the one's that love you most love you most love you most
Your love alone is not enough not enough not enough
It's what you felt it's what you said what you said what you said
You said the sky would fall on you fall on you fall on you
Through all the pain your eyes stayed Blue they stayed Blue Baby Blue
But your love alone won't save the world
You knew the secret of the universe
Despite it all you made it worse
It left you lonely it left you cursed
You stole the sun straight from my heart from my heart from heart
With no excuses just fell apart fell apart fell apart
No you won't make a mess of me mess of me mess of me
For you're as blind as a man can be man can be man can be
I could have seen for miles and miles
I could have made you feel alive
I could have placed us in exile
I could have written all your lines
I could have shown you how too cry
Your love alone
Is not enough
Your love alone
Is not enough
I could have shown you
Shown you how to cry
Your love alone
Is not enough
Your love alone
04 Indian Summer (03:54)
If God persists, persists in saying yes
I guess we'll have, we'll have to test ourselves
Maybe the Summer, will come and clear our minds
And find the impulse, to love the sunshine
I guess we'll have to test, until there's nothing left
We said the truth was fixed, it's lost without a trace
This crime is eternity
When time lost its certainty
The Indian Summer
Maybe this time
We'll kiss and we'll not shake hands
Indian Summer, still hurt and broken
And leave all this material belief
Remember the reasons
The reasons that made us be
I guess we'll have to test, what's darker than ourselves
We said the truth was fixed, it's lost without a trace
This crime is eternity
When time lost its certainty
The Indian Summer
I guess we'll have to test, until there's nothing left
We said the truth was fixed, it's lost without a trace
This crime is eternity
When time lost its certainty
The Indian Summer
The Indian Summer [x3]
06 Rendition (02:59)
Rendition, rendition, blame it on the coalition
All the emeralds that are missing, oh I wish we still had Jack Lemmon
Rendition, rendition I never knew the sky was a prison
It's a long hard revolution, oh good god I feel like a liberal
For tomorrow I will beg, steal and borrow
And at the moment I'm jumping at sorrow
I wish I knew what I did wrong
Can anybody hear the screaming of us? The screaming of us
In the long hard revolution
Rendition, rendition, blame it on the coalition
The CIA will stay invisible, oh good god I sound like a liberal
Rendition, rendition, I never knew the sky was a prison
It's a long hard revolution, oh good god I feel like a liberal
For tomorrow I will beg, steal and borrow
And at the moment I'm jumping at sorrow
I wish I knew what I did wrong
Can anybody hear the screaming of us? The screaming of us
In the long revolution
For tomorrow I will beg, steal and borrow
And at the moment I'm jumping at sorrow
I wish I knew what I did wrong
Can anybody hear the screaming of us? The screaming of us
In the long revolution
08 I'm Just a Patsy (03:11)
I am just a patsy
The Oswald in Lee Harvey
Made of my own misery
The footprints of history
I am just a patsy
I sell vague conspiracy
I'm slow and I'm easy
And I'm waiting for delivery
I'm just a patsy for your love
I need an angel from above
To a life depraved and lost
Inevitable like scars and dust
I'm just a patsy for your love
Even with the most control
Tied to fragments born and grown
All fucked up with nowhere to go
The best thing I ever saw
I am just a patsy
I sell vague conspiracy
I'm slow and I'm easy
And I'm waiting for delivery
I'm just a patsy for your love
I need an angel from above
To a life depraved and lost
Inevitable like scars and dust
I'm just a patsy for your love, love, love
A patsy for your love, love, love
I am just a patsy
I'm just a patsy for your love
I need an angel from above
To a life depraved and lost
Inevitable like scars and dust
I'm just a patsy for your love
09 Imperial Bodybags (03:30)
Imperial bodybags, coming home in dribs and drabs
Life is numbers, with doggy tags
Filled with holes and coming back
So come on up the sky?
Can't make out this line very well
Never had a chance to wave goodbye
Thrown away and unhappy
Driven by hypocracy
Nothing's finished it just fades away
Like a lover who has lost her faith
Nothing's finished it just fades away
Fades away
Imperial bodybags, Prom Queen disposible
Children wrapped in home-made flags
Imperial bodybags, Prom Queen disposible
Children wrapped in home-made flags
And here we love the kids
We're still human like everyone else
I have no idea what this line is at all
Stuck in school
Always willing to stick by the rules
Nothing's finished it just fades away
Like a lover who has lost her faith
Nothing's finished it just fades away
Fades away
Fades away
Imperial bodybags, Prom Queen disposible
Children wrapped in homemade flags
Imperial bodybags, Prom Queen disposible
Children wrapped in homemade flags
Imperial bodybags, Prom Queen disposible
Children wrapped in homemade flags
Imperial bodybags, Prom Queen disposible
Children wrapped in homemade flags
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Altre recensioni
Di principles
"I Manics cancellano 'Lifeblood' e 'Know Your Enemy' dalla loro discografia e si divertono a riscoprire ciò che avevano fatto prima."
"'Your love is not enough' risulta una grande canzone pop che ricorda l’atmosfera di 'This is my truth, Tell me yours' (1998)."
Di GrantNicholas
Stavolta hanno rischiato di farlo davvero. Il capolavoro, intendo.
L'anima rock dei Preachers viene fuori in tutta la sua prepotenza e spontaneità.
