The second ‘half’ of the recording sessions that
also produced last year’s classy Rewind
the Film is both good and disappointing.
The two albums were billed as being: a) the thoughtful and mellow Rewind the Film, to be followed by b) the
‘rock’ Futurology. Rewind
the Film undoubtedly met all expectations; this didn’t quite. I was hoping for The Holy Bible (20 years old this month! – unfathomable). Or at least Journal for Plague Lovers.
This definitely isn’t in that kind of league, and I find it a bit
perplexing that the reviews for Futurology
were so outstanding in the music press – it’s been said to be the Manics’ best record by a number of
writers (and has been their second best performer commercially). I think I’d probably rank it ninth… That’s the bad news. The good news is that there is still loads of
stuff to love here. The quietly insidious
‘Let’s Go to War’ feels like Richie wrote it and ‘Divine Youth’ sounds like a
track by the long-forgotten but wonderful experimentalists Hello Blue Roses. The last
two tracks are the best on the record by a distance, but I’m convinced that
‘The View from Stow Hill’ actually belongs on Rewind the Film, and ‘Mayakovsky’ belongs goodness knows where (certainly
not on this record, despite being its best track). Overall, I have really enjoyed this, but I
think it was crushed somewhat under the weight of inflated reviews and the
quality of its immediate predecessor.
sample
track: Let’s Go to War