Beautiful Garbage

After the brilliance of their debut and the relative disappointment of the follow-up, Version 2.0, Shirley Manson and Co have clearly regrouped to their Madison, Wisconsin HQ to consider all their options. And consider they have...

With long-time collaborator Butch Vig at the controls once again Beautiful Garbage covers all the angles, embracing a welter of ideas and a leaving few stylistic stones unturned. The sheer variety of the material is breathtaking and brave, making it sound more like a compilation of a decade’s work rather than the “difficult” third album it could have been. It starts out on familiar enough ground with ‘Shut Your Mouth’ a standard rawk belter all the better for Manson’s tough street-wise vocal. The recent single ‘Androgyny’, is a catchy r’n’b/hip-hop number in parts not a million miles away from U2’s ‘Mysterious Ways’. Then things take an unexpected twist. Sounding like something crafted in the Brill Building for the Crystals or Ronnie Spector, ‘Can’t Cry These Tears’ is a big romantic ballad and a sure-fire char-topper should it see a single release.

Change tack with each track from here on in ‘Til The Day I Die’ recalls INXS at their riffing finest, ‘Cherry Lips (Go Baby Go’) mimics The Go-Go’s plastic power pop while closer to the jangly Americana currently in vogue ‘Breaking Up The Girl’ is another stand out .

The epic ‘Silence Is Golden’ stretches Manson’s vocals to the limit while the tender ballad ‘Drive You Home’ is the most instrumentally unadorned track on the album. Destiny’s Child or even Kylie couldn’t make a better fist of the syncopated dance grooves of ‘Untouchable’ while taking yet another turn, ‘So Like A Rose’ conjures up the atmosphere and feeling of Chrissie Hynde singing U2’s ‘Bad’.

A four-seasons pizza of a record, Beautiful Garbage has more than enough high points to make it their best yet.