The Golden Age of Grotesque

Whatever else you say about Marilyn Manson, the guy sure is resilient. By rights, the self-proclaimed God Of Fuck should have been a one-trick pony, a goth-circus novelty act who briefly amused a few bored Placebo fans, served as court jester to a coterie of NME/Melody Maker hacks at the fag-end of Britpop, and provided American networks with some handy filler material for those hand-wringing, “What’s Wrong With The Youth Of America?” investigative news shows.

Instead, Manson has shown remarkable staying power, keeping afloat largely through a series of anthemic, unapologetically antagonistic singles. But the longer the one-time Brian Warner’s career goes on, the more he seems to hide behind his frustratingly guarded alter-ego. Rather than offer us a long-overdue glimpse behind the mask, with Golden Age Manson has once again sought refuge in his wardrobe, this time emerging as an early 20th century glam-freak cabaret-act, in thrall to “Weimar decadence, Brechtian vaudeville and Surrealist art.” It’s a novel stylistic brew for sure, but sadly this sense of daring and experimentation hasn’t filtered down to the music.

Though the regulation synth-pop influences underpin the breakneck likes of ‘This Is The New Shit’ and ‘Ka-boom Ka-boom’, too often the tunes are weighed down by the sort of plodding, hopelessly generic industrial rhythms you’d sooner associate with scene also-rans such as Danzig or Front 242.

If the record sounds tired and dated in the groove department, Manson hasn’t exactly covered himself in glory on the lyrical front either. The groupie-baiting ‘Para Noir’, for instance, has a lyric sheet which reads thus: “(The women of the world declare their reasons for loving me) My response is as follows: Fuck you because I loved you/Fuck you for loving you too/I don’t need a reason for hating you the way I do.” Such self-aggrandizing shock tactics may have been news seven or eight years ago, but sound woefully obsolete in 2003.

The sole reason for buying this album – the group’s electrifying cover of Soft Cell’s ‘Tainted Love’ – is ironically tacked on as an afterthought, when in truth Manson should have taken the song’s cracking electro grooves as a pointer toward future directions. On this showing, the goth-nostalgia circuit looms ever closer.