Manic Street Preachers Manic Street Preachers Manic Street Preachers are a Welsh rock band, formed in 1986 in Blackwood, Caerphilly and consisting of cousins James Dean Bradfield (lead vocals, lead guitar), and Sean Moore (drums, percussion, soundscapes), plus Nicky Wire (bass guitar, lyrics). They are often colloquially known as The Manics. Following the release of their first single, "Suicide Alley", the band was joined by Richey Edwards as co-lyricist and rhythm guitarist. The band's early albums were in a punk vein, eventually broadening to a greater alternative rock sound, whilst retaining a leftist politicisation. Their early combination of androgynous glam imagery and lyrics
Manic Street Preachers fire for introspective melancholy. According to AllMusic, the album "takes the hard rock inclinations of "Generation Terrorists" to an extreme." The band also stated that the choice to work with Dave Eringa again was important for this album: "We finished work in November and then just went straight into a demo studio and we came out about four weeks later with the album all finished. We were all happy with all the songs, we knew what they wanted to sound like, so we didn't want to use a mainstream producer because they've got their own sound and vision of what