I think it's the band's worst look and physical shape but musically it cancels all that out.
More excited for this box than any other album funnily!

This makes me so excited.

Fear of Motion and Little Trolls in HQ.
Potential unreleased material (original demo of Midnight Sun??)
The chance of getting more KYE album cuts live (always thought the likes of The Convalescent, Intravenous Agnostic, Dead Martyrs etc would EXPLODE live)

One of their best eras, bound to have some incredible curios in there.

The height of my Manics fandom.

I will pay whatever Wire asks for a shitty shoebox re-issue with fancy stickers. Just make it two separate albums with double vinyl for each. No fucking demos on the vinyl. And a nice book with handwritten lyrics like the original release.

Can't wait.

EDIT: Edit to say take it easy on the visual material. Everyone looked like shit.

I'm all on board if they want to clear the vaults completely.

WHY

Have always thought that there is a good lo-fi, back to basics album within KYE and it would have been a good fit for them at the time following on from Masses and the accusations that it had all become a bit overblown on This is my Truth. I've always thought that Found That Soul, Ocean Spray, Intravenous, Let Robeson Sing, Year of Purification, Dead Martyrs, The Convalescent, Royal Correspondent, Baby Elian and Freedom of Speech would have made a good, short, concise and to the point album.

I've also always really liked some of the B sides from that album as well as the artwork, so this could be an interesting reissue.

The Japanese version of Lifeblood is almost like a deluxe edition. If they were to release something along those lines, with maybe There by the Grace of God, Door to the River and Forever Delayed added and it packaged more as an era album as opposed to just Lifeblood, then it might have more of an appeal.

Of all the visual stuff, I'd love some sort of print of the clean album cover painting.

That's all the why I need

I popped the cd on last night after hearing about this upcoming re-issue. I really enjoyed it from start to end.

It really benefits from the album being released after Lipstick Traces, meaning all the b-sides ended up on the second disc. If it doesn't get a deluxe version then the Japanese one is certainly satisfying enough a release, especially with the amount of booklets it comes with. One of my most played Manics CDs.

I'm not saying it was the best post-Richey era, but it was in many ways the most interesting.

This will always be a special album for me - when I really got into and understood music. I'd had EMG on tape and YSTSFMH on CD for years but had only played them once or twice up to this point.

19 years ago today, I used my double free period at college to walk 2 miles to Virgin Megastore to buy KYE on CD and then listened to it in my sister's CD Walkman.

Following the whole campaign was so exciting at the time because the experience was so new to me

I think Journal just pips it for me because the quality control was better but I was thinking the other day that remembering the moment that the manics.co.uk website turned black with the lightning flashes and the solo from Intravenous Agnostic playing still gives me goosebumps.

When they then updated it to include snatches of lyrics too I can remember thinking this is going to be a weird one (Kleenex towels? Teletext? Haile Gebresilase? Beastie Boys ?) and it was! It's easy to forget just how (intentionally) bland they had become during the TIMTTMY era and this really blew that all apart.

Work experience kid played a blinder that day.

I vividly remember the morning Know Your Enemy was released; going to Our Price on my way to college and picking up a copy, listening to it on my purple DiscMan as I walked up to Stourbridge College. Ended up missing the first half an hour of my English lecture so that I could finish listening to the album, sat smoking behind the bike sheds in the car park.

Listening to “Intravenous Agnostic” right now. The lyrics are nonsense, the production is awful and it’s one of JDB’s laziest vocals (sometimes he doesn’t even hit the notes). AND YET...somehow...it’s still a fucking banger. The wall of lead guitar screaming in the middle eighth is just glorious.