Pitchfork

It's one of rock's bigger mysteries: on the morning of February 1, 1995, 27-year-old Richey James Edwards, guitarist/lyricist for Welsh rabble-rousers Manic Street Preachers, rode off after checking out of a London hotel-- and was never heard from again. His abandoned car turned up two weeks later near a bridge known to attract potential suicides, yet his body was never found, and unsubstantiated claims of Edwards sightings persisted for years.

Yesterday (November 23) Edwards' family made the decision to close this tragic chapter in the guitarist's saga, at least on paper, updating his legal status from "missing" to "presumed dead," according to an NME.com report.

Welsh paper the Western Mail quotes the family's lawyer as saying the decision relects "an acceptance that his affairs have got to be sorted. That's not the same as an acceptance that he is dead."

A spokesperson for the Manics, meanwhile, offered the following to the Western Mail: "The band has been aware this was coming. This is the parents' choice and the band is happy to go with what the parents decide is best. We all dream Richey will come back one day. You hope he is still around somewhere. But it is no longer a realistic hope and if this offers some kind of closure then the band will be content with that."

The remaining Manics-- frontman James Dean Bradfield, bassist Nicky Wire, and drummer Sean Moore-- have been recording a new album with Steve Albini using lyrics penned by Edwards before his disappearance. "Finally it feels like the right time to use them," they wrote on their website earlier this month.

The band is mulling a couple working titles at present-- Journal for Plague Lovers and I Know I Believe in Nothing But It Is My Nothing-- and claims we can look forward to "a record that celebrates the genius of [Edwards'] words, full of love, anger, intelligence, and respect. We have to make this great. Wish us luck."

For the moment, however, the Preachers are proselytizing in Southeast Asia.

MSP:

11-24 Singapore City, Singapore - Fort Canning Park
11-26 Hong Kong, China - HITEC Star Hall
11-30 Bangkok, Thailand - Bangkok 100 Rock Festival