Manic Street Preachers – Gold Against The Soul & Drug Drug Druggy demo recordings

Over the last couple of weeks Manic Street Preachers, gearing up for the release of the long awaited Deluxe Edition of unloved classic Gold Against The Soul, have release two previously unreleased demo recordings as singles/teasers.

The first of these was the albums title track, Gold Against The Soul. The punkier, more lo-fi production shows the song in a whole new light. Stripped of it’s studio rock sheen, Gold Against The Soul is revealed as downtempo, polemic Rock with an, almost robotic, drum machine feel to the rhythm.

Drug Drug Druggy is often seen as a bit of a throwaway. An upbeat rocker about addiction & depression. They rarely play it live & the title is slightly in ‘cringe’ territory. The fidelity drop brings out different instruments to the album version. There’s a very nice organ part playing beneath everything else which I couldn’t swear, one way or the other, is on the original version. Multitalented multi-instrumentalist James Dean Bradfield shines magnificently here. His voice sounds incredible, the rhythm guitar is choppy & precise, & the lead guitars are as good as any that he’s played before.

As a bonus they have also uploaded this Top Of The Pops performance of their single Roses In The Hospital. Fun trivia: that isn’t Nicky Wire miming the bass. He had just got married & was un honeymoon, forcing him to miss the TOTP performance. To replace him they gave their tallest roadie a Minnie Mouse mask & asked him to mime along. Everything in a TOTP performance, bar the vocal, is mimed anyway so it made no difference. Manic Street Preachers lore is awash with such incidents. As a teenager I used to have abootleg VHS cassette which featured all of the bands TOTP performances so I had seen this before.