The Manic Street Preachers are mostly known in the USA for their punky/poppy side, seen as Clash/Cure/Guns N' Roses acolytes who managed to write some catchy songs and posture themselves as meaningful political commentators without having much original to say. "The Holy Bible" takes that image and replaces it with socially-savvy, experimental detours to life's darker side. A true pity it was never officially released in America, as a little promotion could have made this the natural successor to Nirvana's "In Utero".
Of the 13 songs on this album, at least seven are immediate classics, and the other six are no slouches. "Archives of Pain", "4st 7lb", and "Mausoleum" are particularly impressive, and the album-ending pair of "The Intense Humming of Evil" and "P.C.P" truly take the noise to another level--the former is an industrial-grade stretched out crawl, and the latter is one of the most perfect three-minute blasts of melody and attitude that the 90s offered up. The only reason this falls short of a full 5 stars is that a couple of the songs throughout are less than total perfection, but don't take that as an indication that any part of this album is unlistenable. That said, the rest of the Manics' catalog is pretty inconsequential when compared to this.
The lyrics are truly disturbing throughout (especially "4st 7lb", probably the most visceral and uncomfortable song ever written about eating disorders), and not just because the band's primary lyricist, Richey Edward James, disappeared shortly after its release. This ranks highly among other examples of seemingly-hopeless, borderline nihilist music, and that's all the more impressive an accomplishment considering that the Manics' have not really cultivated an aura of disturbedness throughout their career. James was consistently candid about his substance abuse or self-abuse without putting himself on a pedestal or glorifying his behavior. This attitude helps increase the album's tension between darkness and light: the consistent accessibility of the material and harshness of the production reflects the disparity between the despair of the lyrics and hopefulness of their delivery.
All in all, this album stands up well almost twenty years after its initial recording, and sounds as relevant now as it did upon release. A true classic of the "post-grunge" era.
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