Rolling Stone Review: Garbage, No Gods No Masters

[OldbieOne]

A quarter of a century has passed, and Shirley Manson still wants to tear
your little world apart - especially if you support the patriarchies and
idiocracies destroying the planet. On Garbage's seventh offering, No Gods No
Masters (a slogan for anarchists and labor unions alike), Garbage's
redheaded Molotov cocktail explodes at evangelicals apathetically offering
prayers after shootings, "The Men Who Rule the World," shitty men in general
(in case they don't rule the world), and, as is often the case on a Garbage
record, herself. She broods her venom with glorious vigor throughout, as her
bandmates teeter between new wave and industrial stomp depending on the mood
of the song, and together they command one memorable pop melody after
another as if nothing has changed since 1995 in the best way possible

On No Gods No Masters, Garbage finally have a sure footing in the sounds and
sentiments that made them great originally. After Britney Spears and
Christina Aguilera coaxed the spotlight away from Garbage as pop hit makers
in the late Nineties, the band toyed around with their sound, which started
out as a beautifully bizarre mixture of trip-hop, grunge, and synth-rock on
their self-titled 1995 debut. Sometimes they'd go a little too pop (the
supremely catchy "Androgyny") or a little too punk ("Why Do You Love Me,"
their last Top 100 hit). They always sounded like Garbage, but it wasn't
until 2016's Strange Little Birds that they made an album as consistently
Garbage since 1998's Version 2.0.

That flame still burns on No Gods No Masters. Part of the fuel is Manson's
turgid contempt for injustice, but what makes the record so good is how the
rest of Garbage matches her tone perfectly with keyboard glitches, buzzsaw
guitar, and clever but never obtrusive rhythm loops. On "The Men Who Rule
the World," they reimagine Bowie's Young Americans as an industro-pop funk
while Manson rails against the Richie Riches funding the destruction of
Earth's environment. It's like Nine Inch Nails' downward spiral if Trent
Reznor turned his hatred outward and used a mirror ball. Garbage summon the
same power, in inverse proportion, on the quiet "Waiting for God," a
powerful Black Lives Matter-inspired elegy for black Americans who died
"riding their bike or [for being] guilty of walking alone." It's chilling,
arresting, and beautiful at the same time. "Who have we become?" Manson
asks, her voice harmonizing with itself like a chorus of angels.

Manson's personal demons present themselves on "The Creeps," an ode to how
depressing it is to see a cutout of yourself at a front-lawn yard sale set
to new-wave keyboards à la Berlin's "The Metro," and "Wolves," an apology
for letting friends down in the past with a chorus ("No one can say that I
didn't love you") that she sings in a quirky, instantly memorable way. On
"Godhead," she whispers vulgarities like, "Would you deceive me if I had a
dick?/Would you know it/Would you blow it?" with the intention of skewering
religious leaders who decided God is a man.

Her breakup-revenge fantasy, "A Woman Destroyed," is set to a piercing,
horror film score, and the album closer "This City Will Kill You" pairs
sweetly descending guitar, Bond-theme horns, and a light trap beat as Manson
wonders "Why was I the one to survive?" But those two are separated by
"Flipping the Bird" and "No Gods No Masters," a couple more new-wavey middle
fingers directed at conceited men, that show how adept Garbage are at
pairing sweet melodies with noisy textures. But for all of the group's
abundant signature moves on No Gods No Masters, the record never feels like
a nostalgia bid. That's because after 26 years, Garbage know who they are
and are comfortable with themselves. It's the men who rule the world who
should feel uncomfortable.

More on Rolling Stone:

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/garbage-no-gods-no-ma
sters-review-1181440/


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OldbieOne

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