Review Summary: Bradfield's solo effort is unfortunatley thouroughly unremarkable and most importantly devoid of the general rock and roll spirit that the Manics are famous for.
The Manic Street Preachers have suffered terribly from what inevitably happens to all bands, growing up. They aren’t the angry twenty somethings they used to be and so will never produce another “The Holy Bible”. Furthermore its not 1998 anymore so churning out another “This is My Truth” is unlikely to gain them significant airplay. So in the horrible position of being unable to please the hardcore fans wanting another angry punk creation or the casual music listener looking for a tune to put on the pub jukebox, in 2004 they decided to take a break. In this time Nicky Wire and James Dean Bradfield both created solo albums, and after this slow Manic infested intro I will now get on with what I intended to do which is review Bradfield’s effort.
James Dean Bradfield is viewed as the musical brain of the Manics, with Nicky Wire providing the lyrics so on paper it seems that this should merely be another Manic Street Preachers album albeit with only one of the Preachers. Theories however often do not hold up in reality, and The Great Western is a shining example of this. As soon as the opening riff of “That’s no Way to tell a Lie” leads into the first verse, it becomes apparent, that this is unashamedly pop. Which I in no way mean as a bad thing, but it’s a shock to anyone expecting a Manic’s record. Gone are any rock and roll sensibilities, politically charged lyrics are absent and in their place are catchy riffs with (in my own opinion) an overuse of synth and catchy but for the most part unintelligent lyricism. Now “That’s now Way to Tell a Lie” is a great pop tune, but it is that and nothing more. This unfortunately can be said about the majority of the album’s “happy” songs, they are catchy, fun and importantly (for the most part) memorable, but by far miles away from being endearing. Nothing makes you want to listen to the majority of it again; even “Bad Boys and Painkillers” which benefits from his band mate Wire’s lyrical prowess is spoiled by an over-synthed chorus and uninspiring verses.
The more introspective tracks are where he really comes into his own however; second single “English Gentleman” is a brilliant piece both lyrically and musically. The verses have a constant feeling of building tension towards a climax, which is the simple yet powerful chorus lyric “we were so happy/ to be at the door/ of an English gentleman.”
The song “Émigré” is also in this vein and stands out because of it, especially the chorus. Which makes use of some brilliant backing vocals providing “ooh la las” that usually I would find annoying actually making the song far catchier than it would be without them.
So in conclusion this album is, and I am truly unable to use another word, good. It ticks all the right boxes that a pop singer-songwriter should, but fails to do anything special. Even Bradfield’s usually excellent guitar work is disappointingly sidelined for truck loads of keyboards. So it is really hard to say much more about this album as it doesn’t do anything wrong, but equally its hard to really point out what it does right.
