Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Rage and anger are very frustrating animals, in some it becomes lost in a rant that is fuelled by jealousy and is unattractive to see portrayed or seen. In many though the anger grinds under the surface, its reflection on society growing until the bubble bursts and comes pouring out, not in a diatribe of mixed, sometimes reactionary anguish but in a form of social belief, quiet fury that is softly spoken and carrying perhaps the biggest sack of wrath. For fury and change never seems to be misplaced in the anger of a patient man.
In the case of the Manic Street Preachers, angry men, three musicians who exemplify Welsh music and the burning desire for change in the same way that the likes The Alarm were keen to extol; if change is not forthcoming then the least the anger can do is report it in such a way that annoys those at the top and whose actions led to deaths and dishonour, whether of the individual or of a city.
Rewind The Film is perhaps the finest album by the Welsh trio in all their years together, its stunning arrangement is coupled with songs that sing directly to the listeners heart and hopefully their conscious and features a couple of exceptional star turns in Lucy Rose on This Sullen Welsh Heart and Richard Hawley on the title track of the album.
The threesome leave the most damning till last, the swipe at a section of society that for far too long has gone unchecked with near or no accountability for the actions of its past and the alleged defamations towards those who question the so called authority of state. By placing within the lyrics the horror of an April day in which 96 Liverpool fans never made it home from Hillsborough, the allegations in some quarters of the establishment of the treatment of L.S. Lowry because he managed to do what so many would find difficult to do and turn down a knighthood and many more damning indictments of 21st century Britain, the track 30 Year War follows in the same rich tradition of S.Y.M.M. and If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next as a pure classic standing on the shoulders of working class social awareness.
Rewind The Film is to music that Cathy Come Home and A Taste OF Honey were to British cinema, artistic output that comments on the society we have allowed ourselves to become. As near perfect a Manic Street Preachers album you will ever come across.
Ian D. Hall