Gold Against the Soul was a great album. It took me a while to get into it when I was younger, but it's probably the Manics album I go to most these days. It has many highlights, and La Tristesse Durera is certainly one of them. The version on this 12" is the album version, but it sounds different somehow. Maybe it sounds better on vinyl, or maybe I'm just playing it much louder than normal. Either way, it sounds excellent; fresh, despite being 20 years old. I picked up this slightly-knackered second-hand copy in Selectadisc in London (before it became Sister Ray) nearly ten years after it came out.
There's a full selection of treats as the three b-sides too. Patrick Bateman is probably the most Guns n' Roses the Manics ever sounded - riffy, glossy and screamed vocals (the GATS-era must have been hard on James' vocals but it also contains some of his finest moments). It ended up being years after I bought this single that I saw American Psycho and made the connection. Without knowing the book or the film, the lyrics are even more shocking.
The third song is a live recording of Repeat which they hammer through at break-neck speed. Finally we get the b-side to their impossible-to-find, first-ever 7", Tennessee (I Get Low). This would have been even more exciting had I not bought one of the many bootleg copies of the Suicide Alley 7" on eBay a few months beforehand. I wouldn't normally buy a bootleg, but I wanted to hear those two songs badly (more on this when I write about that record). The recording is comically bad, but excellent at the same time.
Format: 12"
Tracks: 4
Cost: £7 second hand
Bought: Selectadisc, Soho
When: 07/03/03
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no
