MITCH IKEDA/PRESS
Manic Street Preachers were at a crossroads after tearing down the chart-hogging This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours with a partial return to their rebellious gnarly roots in 2001’s Know Your Enemy. Rather than continuing to “destroy everything we’d built” for their next record, 2004’s Lifeblood, the Blackwood trio opted to make a fully blown pop album instead.