Gold Against The Soul

Product Information

Trefor, Cai (25 November 2015). "The 27 greatest Welsh bands of all time". Gigwise . Retrieved 14 May 2021.

Following 2014's acclaimed Futurology, the stellar, anthemic 2018 album Resistance Is Futile reaffirmed the Manics' position as the UK's most resilient and enduring guitar band. As well as continuing to make brilliant new music, their ongoing series of reissues provides reminders of how they won that position in the first place. The latest album to receive the treatment is 1993's Gold Against The Soul. The band 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 a record should be like. So we just phoned Dave up and said 'Look, come down, let's see how this works out', and everyone loved what we were doing, so we decided to stay with him." [3] Gold Against the Soul saw the band experiment with styles including funk and grunge. [1] [2] The album's lyrical themes owed little to the political and social commentaries of its predecessor, and instead explored more personal themes of depression, melancholy and nostalgia. [3] Recording [ edit ] Doyle, Tom (June 1996). "Manic Street Preachers: Everything Must Go". Q. EMAP. p.116. Archived from the original on 21 April 2001 . Retrieved 23 August 2020.The B-sides are appended to the album on CD 1, whilst CD 2 offers the usual array of demos which are always interesting and impressively well developed. For some reason, the demos are labelled as ‘remastered’ which makes no sense, since these are previously unreleased. The reissue ends with more remixes of ‘Roses in the Hospital’ then anyone really needs but omits the seven-inch version of that same single. The Chemical Brothers’ remix of ‘La Tristesse Durera’ is pretty good though. Simon Price of The Telegraph opined that the lyrics on Gold Against the Soul "switched from the political [of Generation Terrorists] to the personal". [5] The lyrical content is considerably less political than their previous album Generation Terrorists, and the album is more reflective of the despair and melancholy of their later work. [3] a b Price, Simon (24 October 2004). "Manic Street Preachers: Sublime and ridiculous". The Telegraph . Retrieved 1 November 2020. James’ room was haunted in the manor and thought that there was something coming in and turning his lights and TV on every night. We didn’t believe him, so we just absolutely took the piss out of him every day.”

Clarke, Allison (25 April 2016). "Manic Street Preachers: Anything but Everything Must Go". LouderSound . Retrieved 19 May 2020. Tangari, Joe (17 January 2005). "Manic Street Preachers: The Holy Bible". Pitchfork . Retrieved 9 January 2012. Four singles were released from the album. " From Despair to Where" was the lead single. " La Tristesse Durera (Scream to a Sigh)" was the second single from the album and it has been described by many as its highlight. The third single, " Roses in the Hospital", peaked at number 15 on the UK Singles Chart, the highest-charting single from the band's first three albums. [14] The fourth and final single, " Life Becoming a Landslide", charted at number 36, which would be the lowest charting single by the band until 2011's " Some Kind of Nothingness". [14]Stokes, Paul (12 May 2011). "Album A&E – Manic Street Preachers, 'Gold Against The Soul' ". NME . Retrieved 31 December 2014. Sadly, Wire also told NME that there wouldn’t be an extensive tour to hear the album played in full as they did with past anniversaries for ‘The Holy Bible’, ‘Everything Must Go’ and ‘This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours’ — but the band do have some treats in store for fans this summer. Gold Against the Soul Deluxe Re-Issue". Manic Street Preachers. 11 March 2020 . Retrieved 27 June 2020. Stuart Bailie, writing for the NME, called the album "confusing" and "too much Slash and not enough burn", but did compliment its musicality, saying "the drums and guitars rumble higher in the mix, and massive, harmonising riffs are everywhere". [18] In his review for Vox, Keith Cameron remarked that the album showed Manic Street Preachers "skating gingerly over that treacherous Difficult Second Album ice". [25] Q 's Peter Kane was more critical, calling the album "superficially competent, of course, but scratch below the surface and you'll find few signs of life, just a vaguely expressed, bemused and bored dissatisfaction". [20] In Spin, Simon Reynolds opined that the band "motor-mouth a fine manifesto, but haven't got a musical bone between them". [26]

a b c de Sylvia, Dave (20 August 2005). "Manic Street Preachers – Gold Against the Soul". Sputnikmusic . Retrieved 27 November 2012. Gold Against the Soul was released on 14 June 1993. It reached number 8 on the UK Albums Chart. The album has since gone Gold (100,000 copies) and spent more than 10 weeks in the Top 75. [14] Gold Against the Soul also charted within the Top 100 in Germany and within the Top 50 in Japan. Carr, Paul (12 June 2020). "Manic Street Preachers Remaster 'Gold Against the Soul' with Deluxe Edition". PopMatters . Retrieved 3 July 2020. Scott, Ben P (11 June 2020). "ALBUM REVIEW: Manic Street Preachers – Gold Against The Soul (Deluxe Reissue)". XSNoise . Retrieved 16 June 2020. a b Kane, Peter (August 1993). "Manic Street Preachers: Gold Against the Soul". Q. No.83. p.89. Archived from the original on 11 March 2002 . Retrieved 4 January 2013.

The tracklist for the ‘Gold Against The Soul’ reissue is:

Selected items are only available for delivery via the Royal Mail 48® service and other items are available for delivery using this service for a charge. A special shout-out goes to the demo of "Sleepflower", where the band clearly raided the nearest kitchen for its cooking pot percussion breakdown) Since the deluxe reissue is only a two-CD set (expanded album on CD 1 and demos and remixes on CD 2) they really should have made it consistent with the new album deluxe sets and the Send Away The Tigers reissue. I hate to be cynical, but surely the only reason not to do that is because it denies you the opportunity to artificially inflate the price by literally making it bigger – although I’m sure the band will claim otherwise, saying they wanted a bigger format to show off Mitch Ikeda’s photos. When it comes to their new records, the Manics seem to understand the importance of consistency of presentation. The last five long-players (since 2009’s Journal For Plague Lovers) have all come as near identical, shelf-friendly, compact hardcover book deluxe editions, normally offering at least a bonus CD of demos. However with reissues, they are frankly all over the place.

Gourlay, Dom (22 June 2020). "Manic Street Preachers: Gold Against the Soul – Deluxe Edition (Columbia/Sony)". Under the Radar . Retrieved 3 July 2020. Offiziellecharts.de – Manic Street Preachers – Gold Against the Soul" (in German). GfK Entertainment Charts. Retrieved 3 July 2020. Patashnik, Ben (25 February 2008). "Discography reassessed: the Manics in perspective". Drowned in Sound. Archived from the original on 4 February 2013 . Retrieved 10 January 2013. a b Jovanovic, Rob (2010). A Version of Reason: The Search for Richey Edwards. Hachette UK. ISBN 9781409111290. a b c Erlewine, Stephen Thomas. "Gold Against the Soul – Manic Street Preachers". AllMusic . Retrieved 31 December 2014.Surely the reissue of Gold Against The Soul will be consistent with something, if only by accident!? Well, no actually. Yes, it is a hardcover book, but it’s A4-sized and can’t sit properly alongside the 12-inch boxes (they’re too big) or the smaller deluxe sets (they’re too small). Nothing is ‘just right’ so Gold Against The Soul is like an outcast having to sit on its own. Maybe that was the idea – we know they don’t really like it! James Dean Bradfield of the Manic Street Preachers on a year of hospital horror..." Select. Archived from the original on 4 May 2007 . Retrieved 1 October 2012.