Garbage
Let All That We Imagine Be The Light
★★★★
BMG
There’s an ‘every cloud…’ aspect to Let All That We Imagine Be The Light - Shirley Manson’s long, painful rehab post-shattered hip buying Butch Vig, Duke Erikson and Steve Marker time to gift her the inspiring sonics that sparked Garbage’s eighth album.
Part ominous, expletive-strewn songs of confrontation, part vulnerable hymn of acceptance, it finds Manson berating a moth-to-flame fool calling for her retirement (Chinese Fire Horse) and weathering an ‘other woman’ showdown in Barcelona (Have We Met (The Void)).
Elsewhere, something-amiss-in-toy-town keys, scabrous synth-bass and a Nirvana-ish use of wildcard chords deepen the unease, but we get bouquets as well as barbed-wire. Sisyphus is transcendent dream-pop, while soaring, David Bowie-esque closer The Day That I Met God – Manson sings of doing so while on tramadol – brings the blissed-out epiphany that god’s face was that “of everyone I’d ever loved”.
Let All That We Imagine Be The Light is out 30 May on BMG.
ORDER: Amazon | Rough Trade | HMV
Track Listing:
There’s No Future In Optimism
Chinese Fire Horse
Hold
Have We Met (The Void)
Sisyphus
Radical
Love To Give
Get Out My Face AKA Bad Kitty
R U Happy Now
The Day That I Met God
Get the latest issue of MOJO for the definitive verdict on all the month’s essential new releases, reissues, music books and films. More info and to order a copy HERE!
