Manic Street Preachers
Postcards From A Young Man

To those who ask me about my immense love for music, I answer that music saved my life. As cliché as it may seem, obvious, but that's how it is.

Because I had what they call a difficult adolescence. Abandoned (meaning ran away from) by the paternal figure at twelve years old, you can only have a difficult adolescence. But I'm certainly not here, Sunday morning at nine before going to a wedding, to write about sad things and make you cry: suffice it to say that at the age of 16, I had my biggest "no moment." That summer I met the Manics. Love at first sight. Partial redemption and (partial) distancing from drugs and bad company, because I finally had someone who spoke to me. The Manics never told me trivial things. With their image halfway between Clash and New York Dolls, with lyrics that systematically avoided the love-sex-fun cliché. They spoke of anorexia and capitalist systems in disarray, hospitalizations and Pol Pot, of piss and shit, of steps in the snow that leave no trace, of pornography and alienation, of the commodification of the female body and South American revolutions. They gave a damn to the queen and the whole country. And they did it credibly, inserting these things into rock-pop-punk structures with devastating emotional power. A bomb.

Paradoxically, they sang "Suicide Is Painless" and I no longer thought of suicide. Youthful fixations, the more worldly-wise among you might think. Maybe.

Anyway. The years pass, things fall into place, relationships become peaceful. The Manics write their masterpiece ("The Holy Bible", everyone should have it), lose Richey James, become bourgeois, and more pop. I continue to follow them, faithful and grateful. Last year, they released one of their best works ever ("Journal For Plague Lovers"), inspired by James’ lyrics pulled from some dusty drawer. A return to the raw sounds of their beginnings.

Just a year later, here they come with a new work, in the words of those involved "one of our most pop albums, an attack on the mass communication system". They’ve always had this communist penchant, saying revolutionary things in extremely communicative and accessible tracks, to reach as many people as possible.

But let's talk about the album. Let's clear up the misunderstandings: "Postcards..." is one of the Welsh's least successful works. And it couldn't have been otherwise, having released one of their best albums just 12 months ago. It contains 3 great songs, "Auto Intoxication," "Hazelton Avenue," and "Some Kind Of Nothingness": the first with irresistible punk energy, the second with immeasurable pop melancholy, the third a melodramatic pop gospel of epic proportions.

The rest? a series of good songs overloaded with strings, choruses, guitars, emphatic melodies. A couple of them not irresistible, which would have just been passable b-sides.

In short, the album is a 3. But without hesitation, I bought the deluxe edition and the multibuy single, including the 45 rpm. Straight from England. Because faith is faith.

If you don’t know them, don’t start here. If you know them, and like me love them, and feel an affinity, you’ll find yourself humming "It's (not) War Just The End Of Love" in the shower. Trust me.

Long live the Manics. And long live me. I'm going to get ready.