A band must have a lot of confidence to name itself a synonym for trash voluntarily. Just imagine all the funny puns the critics could feast on when an album turns out to be a total stinker (pun intended). Luckily for Garbage, its music has turned out to be anything but rubbish, and the sound and effect anything but disposable in its newest album "Bleed Like Me," the first in four years.
Entering the airwaves in the mid-'90s, the band conceived by Butch Vig and fronted by Scotland's gift to the estrogen-bleeding punk electronica, Shirley Manson, Garbage provided a refreshing dose of dark but energetic rock-and-roll indefinitely enhanced by Manson's alluringly psychotic charisma.
Never before have songs about going "Joan of Arc" on your ex-boyfriend ("Vow"), fatal attractions ("Queer," "#1 Crush"), self-worshipped depression ("Only Happy When It Rains") or adolescent bipolarity ("When I Grow Up") sounded so catchy or full of life. With its slick blend of heavy guitars and computer-generated loops, it is only surprising that Garbage has never reached the popularity status gained by the likes of No Doubt.
Somewhere between Gwen Stefani's sophistication and Courtney Love's exaggeration, Manson has found a chick-rock image that has never asked to be liked or understood, but simply worshipped. Through songs digging deep into the issues of sex, infidelity and sanity she has connected with a wide audience of self-aware people, completely content with their emotional flaws and various degrees of psychological freakiness.
"Why do you love me? Why do you love me? It's driving me crazy!" Manson screeches on track four of the latest release by Garbage, "Bleed Like Me." The first single, "Why Do You Love Me," is vintage Garbage - loud, fast-paced, peppered with over-the-top guitars that break headphones and the kind of typical Garbage lyricism that always has managed to make even suicidal stories seem sexy.
Once again, Manson is in a paranoid mood celebrating her low self-esteem because her lover is supposedly cheating on her.What is interesting about Manson's anti-heroine act is that you can't help sympathizing with the alleged adulterous boyfriend. The song title "Why Do You Love Me" could not be more urgent, after listening to Manson lyrically pick on, over-dramatize and possibly sabotage her intimate relationship.
The whole album is a perfectly cohesive piece of art. It's the exact opposite of 2001's dud "Beautiful Garbage."After disastrously flirting with different genres on the last project -- which almost broke the band up for good - this time around the band creates a more rock solid and live-performance-ready sound. Closing in wisely on just 11 tracks and putting the temptations of computer touch-ups aside, the outcome is smart, sonically explosive, raw with lyrical emotion and wildly entertaining.
"Bad Boyfriend" opens the set with a bang, spinning an anything but cautionary tale - a tale of getting involved willingly with the wrong person just for the fun of it, all told over a hauntingly grunge-like sound from the band. "We may not last but we'll have fun till the end. C'mon, baby, be my bad boyfriend," Manson drones like a poster girl for deliciously masochistic behavior.
The opening track sets a standard for the rest of the album and does not disappoint in its sound or attitude for a moment. "Don't care what they have to say; no point of listening to them anyway," Manson sings on "Right Between The Eyes," proclaiming her nonconformity and independence with uncompromising fierceness. On "Why Don't You Come Over" Garbage challenges all personal and professional criticism with a "who needs you?" attitude. The anger and smugness is balanced by slower numbers like "All Over But The Crying," and the title track, a wonderfully wicked ode to human complexity.
Garbage always has sent out a message of sexual revolution through a free-thinking approach to sexuality in its songs and Manson's androgyny. Enter "Sex Is Not The Enemy," where bold statements about sex and social standards provide an explicit and righteous attack on post-Super Bowl wardrobe-malfunction America.
In the end, "Bleed Like Me" may not dethrone the Bush administration or save America, but it's comforting to know the revolution is always just around the corner, and the right doctrine is still alive and kicking. The lyrics from "Run Baby Run" say it best, "find out who you are before you regret it, 'cause life is so short, there's no time to waste it."
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