Manic Street Preachers: Forever Delayed.

They said they’d split up after one album, now they’ve got a best of. The Manics never did quite achieve what they announced they would, but what they have is formidable. In the autumn of their musical career, they find themselves in the absurd position of having to exclude tracks from their best of, because they have too many top 20 hits. Seriously. A genuine greatest hits, Forever Delayed features 18 hit singles, plus two new tracks. And much like Ash’s best of, it’s packed with great songs.

Nicky Wire once said he preferred sport to music because in sport, the bigger your talent, the more likely you were to win. But this premise applies to music as well. Most obscure bands are so endowed because their music is simply not of a high enough quality to get people interested. That said, it’s impressive just how many classic songs are on this collection. From the urgent vitality of Motown Junk, past the melancholic beauty of Motorcycle Emptiness, the white-hot visceral thrill of Faster and the elegiac, funereal A Design for Life, the Manics have crafted at least four of the nineties’ benchmark songs. And the rest aren’t half bad, either. You Love Us, La Tristessa Durera, Everything Must Go, Australia et al are all formidable pieces of music that most of today’s British guitar bands would kill to write.

A greatest hits is usually a swansong or marks a career crossroads, but whatever James, Sean and Nick decide to do (an acoustic based, pared-down album has been mooted), the loss of Richey James/Edwards still hangs over them, and it always will. His lyrics gave them a darker slant that the music never could match, (though the Holy Bible tried) and since his disappearance, the term dad-rock has been levelled at the remaining members more than once.  This is a phrase that is bandied about in the music press, usually when journalists are trying to find a synonym for mature, though it’s hard to imagine Rod Stewart of the ilk releasing an album as dark as This Is My Truth, Tell Me Yours. The two new tracks here are two of the most mature things the band have done. There By The Grace of God takes a few listens to unfold its wings, but when it does, it’s dignified and melodically strong, without conceding to stadium rock or pomp, while Door To The River signals a return to the string-laden days of Everything Must Go, and actually sounds conciliatory (and gorgeous). James Dean Bradfield has often hinted that he’ll carry on writing and performing until he has created the perfect album. Everything Must Go was a valiant effort, but hopefully they’ll have some more attempts at it. There’s life in those old legs yet.