Manic Street Preachers Release Their First Live Album, Built Around The Holy Bible

For a band that has spent four decades on the road, Manic Street Preachers had never released a live album. That gap closes with The Holy Bible Live, which documents the trio performing their 1994 record in full at London’s Roundhouse during a run of 2014 shows.

The choice of album is the substance of the release. The Holy Bible was the last Manic Street Preachers record to feature Richey Edwards, and it remains the hardest, least forgiving thing in their catalogue. It also sits awkwardly beside 15 studio albums that have otherwise moved toward scale and polish. Placed between the largely acoustic Rewind The Film and the European, Krautrock-influenced Futurology, revisiting it plays as a deliberate loop back.

The recording also makes clear how much of this material the band have kept off regular setlists. Heard as a whole, thirteen tracks opening with the spoken intro and riffs of ‘Yes’, songs such as ‘She Is Suffering’ and ‘Archives of Pain’ land differently in a room the size of the Roundhouse, where the natural echo suits the record better than an arena would. James Dean Bradfield’s guitar is the constant: two decades after the original release, he plays these parts without softening them.

The set is likewise an argument about legacy. Edwards’s presence runs through the performance, and ‘The Intense Humming of Evil’ carries a tribute to him. The Manics have long since become a band of arenas and reflective late records. This is the other thing they are.