Written by: Kristen Jones
Journal for Plague Lovers is the ninth studio album by the alternative rock band Manic Street Preachers. It was released on May 18th, 2009 and features lyrics left behind by Richey Edwards.
Although there may be a whole generation of fans who have no recollection of their original guitarist and lyricist, Richey Edwards memory has stalked the group ever since his unsolved disappearance in early 1995.
Weeks prior to his disappearance, he had given his bandmates a notebook filled with lyrics, poetry and collages. The band has since spoken of their sense of responsibility to do something with that collection.
For their latest album, the trio decided to attempt something on the controversial side. For the first time since 1996′s Everything Must Go, they were going to use the lyrics of Edwards. Things started to fit together in a positive way and it was announced that no singles were to be released off the album, because it was to be listened to as a whole. The pressure upon the band to provide the lyrics justice must have put quite the weight on their shoulders, but they did it. Not only have they done the lyrics service, Journal for Plague Lovers is so gracefully executed and unpretentious that is rises up triumphantly as one of the best records of their career.
Journal for Plague Lovers teeters on the edge, between what the band might have been and what they did become. Maybe the two aren’t so different. This is not so much the finishing off of an unfinished symphony, as it is a sense of closure, a last chapter in the life of Richey Edwards.
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