God Save The Manics

The Lifeblood era, despite the high quality of the album itself, had its own problems - namely, it was a promotional catastrophe. The band wasn't bothered about promotion during the era and after the second single "Empty Souls" quietly flopped after constant pushbacks of release date and complete promotional silence, the era got a quick and undignified end. However, the era was also a terrificly prolific in material for the Manics as proven by the high quantity of the b-sides. The band had however recorded more material then they had ended up releasing on the two singles and after the promotional run was cut dry, it was time to find another way to release it. Of course, this is all a fanboy's conspiracy theory but the patterns match and God Save the Manics EP consists of some of the planned b-sides for the never-released third single off Lifeblood, which in all likelihood would have been accompanied by the Japanese bonus tracks of the album (as the band traditionally has released said bonus tracks during the later singles of their album periods). The amount of songs match, one of the songs got a Patrick Jones -directed video just like what happened in the previous singles, etc... Regardless of whether all this is true or not, what is a certified fact that the three songs of God Save the Manics EP found their release at the very end of the band's 2005 Past/Present/Future tour. In a most likely completely coincidental yet rather cool move, the three tracks of the EP represent rather nicely where the band came from, where they were at the time and where they were headed next. "A Secret Society" is all aggressive guitar riffs, political slogans, destructively obsessive self-referencing and youthful rock n roll energy. It's the band's roots, but reinterpreted in a fashion that suits the band as they are now rather than trying to desperately reclaim past days. And thus, the riffs and shouts are held in place by an alluring groove and fun little compositional gimmicks - the chorus handclaps are a joy. "Firefight" would show where the band would head next. It's as Manics-esque of a Manics song as a song can get, holding its head high in the grand tradition of a grand guitar anthem. The big exception to Send Away the Tigers that tried to do the same for an entire album is that Firefight sounds like it was worked on with love rather than triggering autopilot switches. James also gets to show the first signs of the SOLO ALBUM that was about to come the following year as he takes on the lyrical duties, succeeding fairly well in illustrating the bittersweetly optimistic tune of the song with words. "Picturesque" would then be the 'present' of the EP. Sure enough, it's melody-heavy, ethereal tone slots best with the atmosphere-heavy Lifeblood era. Yet its swerving, glimmering detachedness is inspired directly by their past, unearthing the first Richey lyrics ever since Everything Must Go (and which would later appear in their original contexts on Journal for Plague Lovers). The result is a very haunting song which, while heavily relying on the style of the era it's from, sounds like it has very little to do with anything the band's done in their days. In its regal coldness, it climbs to the top spot of the EP.