Manic Street Preachers: Gold Against The Soul

ONCE IT HAD BECOME OBVIOUS that MI5 had nothing to fear from four mascara'd bedroom situationists fond of carving lumps out of their own flesh when they weren't dissing the Royal Family, the Manic Street Preachers' reason for existence hinged upon whether they could cut it as a proper rock band — to which last year's patchily brilliant Generation Terrorists re­sponded with a definite "sometimes".