Marilyn Manson - The Pale Emperor, album review

Those Beats, Those Beats

I know little of Marilyn Manson’s back catalogue, but I know I liked some songs before getting weary from the repeat sounds in his latest The Pale Emperor: the chugging [work-songish] opener Killing Strangers; second, stormer Deep Six with a hint of Billy Idol in the vocal; third, great-named Third Day of a Seven Day Binge where the dirge distortions continue and here reminding of Mark Lanegan; fourth, The Mephistopheles of Los Angeles where that chugging pace has become the thread beneath the thudding lite-metal material, drums pounding out a beat as if Adam Ant was marching through as the bandit stealing a little precursor kudos, and into fifth Warship My Wreck where some light orchestration and piano invokes something I can’t quite locate from the 80s and probably why I fast-forwarded to the next, Slave Only Dreams To Be King, where drums pound out another syncopated beat. And so it continues, rather repetitive and those beats too much the same dreariness.

I’ll need to spend more time listening closely to the lyrics [should I decide to persevere], and there is an interesting feature interview with Manson in The Observer Magazine, commenting, for example, on the lyrics Killing Strangers and possible links to reflecting on the Columbine shootings for which Manson was at the time hysterically linked as a potential catalyst because of his songs.