Garbage - Bleed Like Me
By: Mark Runyon | Category: Album Archive | 05/16/05 | 01:16 AM
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 Grade: B |
Genre: Alternative Rock
Summary: While this doesn't rise to the vision and artistry of Version 2.0, Bleed Like Me is definitely a prime disk to throw in to jack you up. It's pretty challenging to fight off a good mood and not enjoy life while listening to it.
Spring is stepping out of the way as we charge head long into summer. It's that special time of year when you can't wait to escape the chains of work each afternoon to partake in your daily run. When the male libido comes out of hibernation at the sight of super short shorts and low cut blouses as well as the perfect time to put the top down and chart your course for the mountains in an afternoon peeling around some mind-bending turns. Granted gas prices are going to put a bit of a damper on the seasonal road trip, but work with me here people. So we have the 'Vette all fueled up, we just need a little driving music to set the tone. Great driving music should have slick beats, stamped by a strong vocal presence and more than anything, be fun to listen to. Well that album is Garbage's latest effort Bleed Like Me. |
Shirley Manson has come a long way. She started her musical career as the indie front woman for the band Angelfish only to end up an international sex kitten for the uber musical coalition Garbage. It's been quite an exciting ride. Garbage has released three studio albums that have dotted the musical spectrum. Their edgy eponymous debut showed rock and electronica could peacefully co-exist within the boundaries of the same group. They put the world on notice to this highly innovative super band. Version 2.0 elevated Garbage to the pinnacle of their art with drilling beats coupled with Manson's seductive eat you alive voice. Then they fell off a cliff with the mushy, soulless Beautiful Garbage that seemed a painful tribute to the excesses of top 40 radio. Now they pull their face from the mud to deliver the highly polished Bleed Like Me.
The group has been through numerous trials and tribulations since they checked in with us last. Manson had a cyst removed from her vocal cords during the Beautiful Garbage tour, and Butch Vig contracted hepatitis. Then the group splintered into bickering indecisiveness concerning the direction this album should take. Also, Manson found herself afflicted with a paralyzing case of writer's block. Vig came short of disbanding Garbage completely yet chose to put the members on individual hiatus instead. Eventually, Manson saw the shocking drama Thirteen that doused her writer's block by immediately penning the album's best track "Bleed Like Me."
The disk doesn't waste any time with idle pleasantries or apologies for the lingering funky aftertaste of Beautiful Garbage. "Bad Boyfriend" rolls off the ropes with a one-two punch to the gut that is as much Hole as it is Garbage. It is the first sign that these songs are here to hit harder than any roundhouse thrown before. From here the album seems to draw comfort in these songs built on manic paced guitars and feverous drum kits. The blistering anti-Bush diatribe "Metal Heart" is probably the best of the rock-drenched pieces. The guitars pulse like out of control sirens as the methodic drums serenade Manson's lacerating lyrics. Occasionally, the album oscillates to the more thoughtful and interesting tunes. "It's All Over But the Crying" is one of the rare quieter moments. It is more pop ballad than deep meditation, but its overall composition really add multiple dimensions to savor. The title track is the height of fascination. Inspiration taken from the indie coming of age film Thirteen, it tells the story of a cutter who finds relief from life's harsh realities not from a bottle or from a pill, but rather in the knife sliding across the skin. The song has the whimsy of youth with a harsh undercurrent showing how serious and grown up this desperate act is. At the song's closing moments, Manson vocally competes with herself interlacing the words "try to comprehend that which you'll never comprehend" with "you should see my scars." It is as pointed a lyrical moment that we've seen from Manson.
Of course that brilliance doesn't explain why there are several songs where she over salts the mix with atrocious lyrics. "Boys Wanna Fight" is the most glaring offender with its numbing chorus "boys wanna fight/but the girls are happy to dance all night." That sounds like it may have cropped up during that bout with writer's block. Thankful her band mates put in the high octane fuel to zip this piece along as if it was the best lyrical moment on the album, making it not quite the eyesore it probably should be. My largest issue with this album is that it's very safe. It is overly polished as the band plug into their signature sound, goosing the tempo to feign the impression that something new is going on here. There isn't that depth and welcomed innovation that defined the tracks on Version 2.0. Simply put it seems to be cursed with the opposite problem of Fiona's Extraordinary Machine. Every song could potentially be a single, becoming more of a question of what to release, when and in what order. That's not the receipe for a great album -- artistically speaking.
While this doesn't rise to the vision and artistry of Version 2.0, Bleed Like Me is definitely a good disk to throw in to jack you up. It's pretty challenging to not be in a good mood and not enjoy life while listening to Bleed Like Me. This disk has enough going for it that you don't have to qualify it as a guilty pleasure, but it certainly feels like it at times. Though the music snob inside me grids his teeth at the thought, if the music brightens your day and affords you a new lease on life should we criticize it for what it's not? Maybe that is enough. I know what I'm listening to on the way into work in the morning. The better question is, do you?
Buy Garbage's Bleed Like Me and check out "Metal Heart", one of this week's featured tracks on Live 365's Innovative Radio
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