Buzz-saw guitars, dense synthesizers and throbbing percussion can sometimes brighten the mood.
That’s the goal of the new album from the American rock band Garbage, “Let All That We Imagine Be the Light.” Due for release Friday, it’s the sound of frontwoman Shirley Manson pushed to the brink by health issues and the fury of our times.
The band’s familiar sonic mix provides a pathway out of the darkness, with heavy riffing and dramatic atmospherics accompanying Manson’s alluring alto.
“This is a cold cruel world,” she sings on the crunchy “Love to Give.” “You’ve gotta find the love where you can get it.”
The album is Garbage’s eighth and the first since 2021’s “No Gods No Masters.” The genesis came last August, when Manson aggravated an old hip injury, abruptly ending the band’s world tour.
The other members of the group – Butch Vig, Duke Erikson and Steve Marker – retreated to the studio and began work on new music. Manson added lyrics that lament fatalism, ageism and sexism, acknowledge vulnerability and mortality, and seek to embrace joy, love and empowerment.
That’s a lot, which may be why there’s a song titled “Sisyphus.” The sonics are formidable, too. A mix that echoes the Shangri-Las,Patti Smith and Evanescence helps to leaven the occasional overripe lyric, such as, “There is no future that can’t be designed/With imagination and a beautiful mind,” in the title track.
Most of the material is less New Age-y, and there’s a fascinating desperation in Manson’s positivity. “Chinese Fire Horse,” for example, becomes a punky, Gen X, age-defying fist-pumper.
“But I’ve still got the power in my brain and my body/I’ll take no (expletive) from you,” she sings.
Manson sounds just as defiant singing about a love triangle on “Have We Met (The Void),” or mourning in America on “There’s No Future in Optimism.” The album peaks on the backside with the back-to-back cuts “Get Out My Face AKA Bad Kitty,” a battle cry in the gender war, and “R U Happy Now,” a ferocious post-election rant.
Then comes the closer, “The Day That I Met God,” a weird and whimsical benedictory mix of horns, strings, faith, pain management and more. Hope and uplift can sound good loud.
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