FIVE YEARS OF "SEND AWAY THE TIGERS"

[The Gutless Wonder]

5 years eh? Still love it to absolute bits and that year was my first time seeing the Manics twice in the same year live so happy memories!

I shall listen to it all the way through tonight. (What with downloads and stuff, don't always get to listen to entire albums these days - just a mish mash of eras! So will be getting the CD player out!)

Happy 5th Anniversay SATT!

[*Found That Soul*]

Great album. Love it .

[Midlands_Junk]

Well, Lifeblood was the first Manics album I bought upon release, and I absolutely adored it from the first moment and still to today. I'd indulged in the Manics back catalogue over the previous few years and completely engrossed myself in their world. Lifeblood was a pleasure to experience because it was something fresh and new for them. Great sound, great lyrics, INCREDIBLE tour.
The PPF tour and the anniversary THB malarkey were both brilliant. The 'two year gap' filled me with curiosity, and Leviathan was awesome, though a bit of a worry that the band might regress.
I remember having my doubts a bit SATT since someone on here ripped Autumnsong and I'm Just A Patsy from the XFM Winter Wonderland gig.
I remember thinking that Patsy was a nice bit of fun, but Autumnsong was just a bit too cheesy and wank for my tastes.
Hated Underdogs from the moment I heard it. Utter, utter bilge.
Then came YLAINE onb the radio for the first time. I found it quite repetetive at first, but I soon realised it was the excellent pop-rock gem that could save them.
The band donning army gear again and looking cool as fuck was welcome to see, BUT MY WORD, the album artwork was SHIIIIIT. Just piss poor. Awful.
Anyway, the album. Loved the album at first because it was just a refreshing burst of immediate energy and that summer was a lot of fun (as was the tour)
It was amazing to see the band so invigorated once again, but the album just hasn't stood the test of time. In fact it falls on its arse quite miserably.
The songs are just so derivitive, diluted and paper thin.
The only tracks that are worth listening to are SATT, YLAINE, Indian Summer, Second Great Depression and maaaybe Rendition at a push. Some excellent b-sides though.
So yeah, I'm happy the album the album exists because it brought the band back to life and paved the way for JFPL. But I haven't listened to it in about three or four years and I don't like how it created the mindset within the band that they need to desparately try to recreate former glories by covering the same ground again and again.
Still, it's better than PFAYM. Just.

[nocultureicons]

When SATT came out I loved it. I'd fallen out with them a few years before so was vary wary about a new album but I upon listening I, like many, was duped into thinking it was a return to form. Unfortunately time hasn't been kind and the songs sound so weak and undeveloped, to the point where the only one I really like is The Second Great Depression. BUT the existence of this album is great for a few reasons. It gave the band their confidence back, the bsides were fantastic and most of all, the success of SATT allowed JFPL to be released - not sure Sony would've been up for it otherwise.

[Thomas]

it's shit, but still better than postcards.

[Europa Gluten Free]

Even as a megacritical Manics fan I listen to (the first half) of this album a lot.

I'm a big fan of SATT, YLA, IS, and TSGD. The rest of the tunes are just fillers to my ears.

I didn't listen to the album at all upon its release but have since grown to appreciate some of the subtly sound (if uninspiring) songwriting in it.

In a nice contrast from Lifeblood reminding me of a cold winter 2004, SATT reminds me on sunny Saturdays with my missus in Spring/Summer 2007.

I think its a very light listening album but its not superficial.

Arguably the bands best B-sides era since TIMT (imo).

[The Gutless Wonder]

AUTUMNSONG!!!

Sorry. Had to be done!

[Son of Stopped]

I got a "Working Class Hero" t-shirt for Christmas. So when I find it, I'll upload pics of me wearing it. Did anyone else buy SATT era shirts?
And I'm thinking that a lot of people might be holding off posting about SATT @ 5 out of a kindness, but seriously, I'd like all views about it.
If you ever wrote out your feelings for SATT before on blogs, could you cherry pick the highlights?
For the haters, your posts about buying SATT and how you felt are as welcome here as support for Autumnsong.

[gallafield]

I heard "autumnsong" and "I'm just a patsy" at the manchester xfm the previous december, and knew from that gig that the new album would be awesome, particularly after the letdown that I felt "lifeblood" was after two years. I've only recently begun to appreciate that album properly.
I remember downloading the leak early one morning about a week before the album came out, and I had to set off for work, and could only listen to the opening few seconds of the title track. I remember the vocals kicking in and thinking "yep, this is great".
I listened to the album constantly for about a month after that. My favourite track is still the title track, and my least favourite (but a song I can still listen to) is still "the second great depression", but it's a really good album that I can listen to all the way through.
It's probably my favourite manics era for b-sides as well. The ylaine b-sides in particular are fantastic.
It's also an album that reminds me of moving to london, as the spring satt tour was the last gig I went to whilst living in chester, and the winter tour was the first gigs I went to whilst living down south.

But my stand-out memory of the entire satt era is the jaw-droppingly wonderful james solo acoustic version of "suicide is painless" from the second night at brixton in the december, and getting a setlist signed by the band afterwards. Tremendous.

[Classified Machine]

Originally Posted by Son of Stopped

Where were you when SATT was released and where are you now?

This got me thinking. I was a part-time manager of a bookmakers, living in London and studying on Access to IT course. I remember being bored, joining the forum and posting my first messages during one of my lessons. Not surprsingly perhaps, I didn't go on to a Computer Science degree! Now I'm living in Sham Shui Po, Hong Kong, teaching English on sabbatical from my job (postal worker in London) and have completed the first year of my politics degree. Makes me wonder how different it will all be 5 years down the line!

As for the album, at the time I loved it. With hindsight, it is probably my least favourite. I give it the occasional listen now. At that stage though, it was still only a couple of years after rediscovering the Manics after a long break (and the entire back catalogue along with that) and so was perhaps willing to give considerable benefit of the doubt in comparison to the more veteran fan. I was also getting more and more interested in politics at that stage and the album is certainly one with more overtly political lyrics.

[pingu]

I was in a far better place in life then than I am now, really, so we won't go into that.

I agree with the person who said that SATT is something of a lost album for them - it was for me too. I wasn't really involved in Manics fandom at all at the time, and as of the JfPL gig in '09 I still hadn't bothered to buy/listen to SATT (I remember that specifically because I hadn't a clue of the words to Autumnsong when they played it, and honest to goodness thought I'd misheard them at the gig until I looked them up). now, I like it well enough.

track by track: I think the title track is one of my favourite of Nicky's lyrics. I HATE Underdogs. YLAINE is grand - Nina is fabulous. Indian Summer and TSGD are both good, they wind up on my playlists a lot. Rendition *should* be a lot better than it is (the oh god, I feel like a liberal! line could be a great sarcastic aside, but the repetition later in the song dampens the effect for me). I can't help but have a sneaky affection for Autumnsong, despite it being mainly an anthem for the follically challenged. Can't stand IJAP. Imperial Bodybags is another song that should be better than it is - and Winterlovers is a song that is better than it should be, weirdly enough.

oh, and the WCH cover is grand. not brilliant, not dire enough to attract the opprobium it does.

[Flint]

The problem with the WCH cover is that it's a dull cover of a song that was really shite to begin with, so they were basically fighting a losing battle when covering it anyway.

[Takk]

Urgh, wch is dire and shit....This was an era with amazing amazing bsides.

[Rammstein]

As strange as it sounds Lifeblood was the album that made me love the band again after KYE, The best way to describe SATT is through a soundbite, to me it was the right album at the right time.

The last couple years before the album I was listening to a varied range of Swedish indie, prog rock, shoegaze, darkwave and other alternative somber affairs and I was crying out for something ballsy and rocky and simple to sing along with and SATT was that album. It also made me return to some sort of Manics fandom, I thought the band had 'had it' from a commercial sense after Lifeblood so I was genuinely excited seeing them in the public eye again, I initially disliked YLAINE when i first heard it and was amazed to see it chart at number 2!!

[Scout Finch]

It was shite then and it's still shite now. That was my period of a complete falling out with the Manics. I had no idea they even had a new album out.