Garbage - Strange Little Birds

Garbage
Strange Little Birds
2016
Spotify

Sheer power. That has an will always define Garbage. A no nonsense bad ass chick singing the strongest rock and roll of an era with little regard for what you think. Garbage always had their fingers on the pulse of that raw emotion that exists somewhere deep within and they are able to bring it back up. Where much of the music world is centered around making people feel good and connected Garbage drill down to what makes you you and what lies beneath whatever bullshit we try and show the world. Garbage have always said a mighty fuck you to the record industry making the music they wanted despite outside pressures to change. In the 2000s this never really turned into the success they experienced in the 90s and thus this album was a bit of a risk. But don't call it a comeback, because they may have taken a break, but this record Strange Little Birds was always somewhere in them. Shirely Manson's voice has never been more powerful, more all encompassing or more vulnerable than it is on this record. She is wide open with her obsession, anxiety and sorrow but it never comes from the place of the victim, instead she owns it as her own and thus derives a great deal of power from it. Strange Little Birds is not like a return to their most successful album 1995's Garbage, though it may have similar elements, instead it is something all its own, knowing where it came from but always looking forward.

The electronic elements which probably would have had the band destroyed in '95 are used with such expert percision on this album that they fit in absolutely seamlessly. A major shift however is "Night Drive Loneliness" which graples with the idea that perhaps depression is somethign that we can't actually shake and will just forever be a nagging passenger in the backseat. The song hovers around haunting and endearing like an one moment could push it one way or another. If there is one flaw in Garbage's delivery it is the slow burn into explosion. When they use it like on "Even Though Our Love Is Doomed" it sounds fine, but they are much better when that power is released right away arriving where we know the song should be and going from there. The brighter songs like "We Never Tell" also feel a bit out of place even though they are perfectly serviceable as tracks. However in the grand scheme of things Garbage is highly successful in crafting an album that encompasses all the passion and all the power that they have always been able to wrap up in a tight little song. They may be 20 years on and their sound has shifted a bit to match that fact, but in the end they are the same band; manic, passionate and exciting. If you haven't yet give Garbage another shot, you won't regret it.

8.8 out of 10