Forever Delayed: Photographs of the Manic Street Preachers

Rating:
Summary: I'll Take A Picture of You...
Review: This is definitely a book for the fans.

At first, I wasn't going to bother to order this until the price came down, or I just wasn't excited enough. I don't know what I was thinking. Plus, being an American Manics fan, it wasn't exactly easy to find here...and our pub. date kept getting pushed back...yadda yadda yadda.

After reading reviews of the book, and seeing some of the photos previewed, I gave in. I'm glad I did. It's beautiful.

These are photos taken by longtime photographer and friend-of-the-band Mitch Ikeda. It's a tribute to his incredible competence and artistic sense that he manages to make every moment caught on film as epic as the band itself. From the first shot of the band, through Richey's disappearance, to the current Manic Street Preachers, Mitch manages to capture James, Nicky, Sean, and Richey as friends, family members, musicians, and--most importantly--as human beings. As for Richey himself, he is shown in his lighter moments (puppet!), as well as his increasingly darker and haunted moments. It proves that he wasn't always moping about as popular mythology (and Simon Price's book) has it.

Not only do you have the photos to tell the story, but most of them have captions from the bandmembers...touching, funny, telling.

Grab a bottle of your favorite spirits, put on the appropriate music, get comfortable, and open this book. You'll find it difficult to put it down.