Garbage
Beautifulgarbage
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Garbage throws everything at you on their third album to see what sticks. But oddly it’s a record that breathes a bit more than their first two. Don’t get me wrong, the heavily layered song constructions and heavy breathing sexuality are still here and there are a lot of production touches both modern and vintage in the grooves. It’s just that Scottish vixen Shirley Manson and her Wisconsin-based bandmates seem to be trying hard to please everybody and that means they’ve dialed down the intensity a notch or two for this one.

You may not get that impression from the uncompromising first track on beautifulgarbage however. Manson’s whisper-rapped distorted vocals on “Shut Your Mouth” are set against a funky guitar riff. “And the world spins by / With everybody moaning / Pissing, bitching and everyone is shitting / on their friends,” she sings. And the more than gender-bending “Androgyny” is built on a flimsy synth bass hook, a taunting sing-song vocal and a nagging guitar riff. In short, it’s the Garbage that will be familiar to fans of “Stupid Girl,” “Only Happy When It Rains,” etc.

On the other hand “Can’t Cry These Tears Anymore” is some sort of electro-pop 60s girl group update complete with wedding bell chimes. “There was a time I thought I’d die / If you should ever leave me high and dry,” Manson sings with mock vulnerability. She sounds even more willing to bare her soul and tone down the swagger on “Silence Is Golden.” “I have been broken / Safe in my own skin / So nobody wins,” she sings wearily amidst the loud guitar hooks.

The disposable bubble gum pop “Cherry Lips (Go Baby Go)” brings the timpani and chimes Motown shtick back for an encore amidst its cheesy early 80s synths and a weird chorus sung by Manson in a baby doll voice: “You’re such a delicate boy / In a hysterical realm / Of an emotional landslide / In physical terms.” And the new-wavey “Parade” is one of the record’s catchiest creations with a nonconformist aesthetic. “Let’s burst all the bubbles / That brainwash the masses,” Manson sings. The slightly creepy trip-hop ballad “Nobody Loves You” borrows a few tricks, not to mention a title, from Portishead. And Manson sounds like P.J. Harvey on “Till the Day I Die” with its crunchy, electronically manipulated guitar sounds, digital vocal hiccups and turntable scratching. She uses her lower range on “Breaking Up the Girl,” sounding almost Courtney Love-like.

The heartfelt, brooding breakup song “Cup of Coffee” adds theremin to the musical mix and features one of Manson’s more straightforward vocals. In fact it shows that her voice is compelling enough not to need the frippery she is usually surrounded with. She chronicles the dark side of a painful split with lines like “So no of course we can’t be friends / Not while I’m still this obsessed.” And Manson shows an eye for the well-observed detail when she sings “You left behind some clothes / My belly summersaults when I pick them off the floor / My friends all say they’re worried / I’m looking far too skinny / I’ve stopped returning all their calls.”

One of the album’s sole missteps is “Untouchable” which bears an unfortunate resemblance to that Britney Spears Pepsi commercial.

For the most part though, Garbage founder and drummer (and producer of Nirvana and Smashing Pumpkins) Butch Vig and guitarists/keyboardists Steve Marker and Duke Erikson keep things interesting and surround Manson with an intriguing collection of soundscapes both expected and unexpected. Don’t know if I’d call it beautiful, but garbage it ain’t.

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