ARTIST: Garbage
ALBUM: Not Your Kind of People
LABEL: Stunvolume
RELEASE DATE: May22, 2012
My Kind of Garbage
Written by Dan Sinclair
Not Your Kind of People is the seventh studio album from the Madison, Wisconsin-based, alt-electronic-pop band Garbage. It’s their first album since they went on an “indefinite hiatus” seven years ago and is also their first album released independently on their own label, Stunvolume. All should not worry: singer Shirley Manson, the guitarist/electronic guys Duke Erikson and Steve Marker, as well as mega-producer and percussionist Butch Vig are all heavily featured on the record.
What better way to start off a new Garbage record than with the single “Automatic Systematic Habit”? It’s got that familiar, aggressive, layered electronic mash-up under the angry, yet melodic vocal samplings of the sexy, Scottish Manson. It’s poppy and catchy but still feels like it rocks anyway. It’s very reminiscent of some of those old hit singles of theirs but still manages to feel new (not like recycled garbage…. ha…ha). Caution: if you hear this song, you will sing it the rest of the day.
The next two tracks, “Big Bright World” and “Blood for Poppies,” keep the album going strong in the same vein, with each song with a little more electric guitar than the first and both sounding as if they would fit just as well here and now as they would have back in 1995. “Don’t know why they’re calling on the radio/They know I’m here just out of sight.” Perhaps that’s why this album was made? Shirley felt she wanted to prove she was still here? Well I, for one, am glad she is.
The song “Control” follows but isn’t quite as memorable as its predecessors, as it feels just a little too familiar; but then the album shifts gears a little with its title track, “Not Your Kind of People.” It’s the first true slow song on the album, but as mellow as it is, it is also really beautifully trippy. At times it almost feels like a Beatles song, then at times it just feels like you need acid to truly appreciate it. It may be because of its different tempo, but this song is a real standout track—one of the most memorable on the album, in fact.
From there it gets a little bumpy for a couple of tracks. The disappointing “Felt” fails to live up to the expectations the poppy, punky guitar gives us at the beginning. “I Hate Love” seems to sum up the overall album’s theme between the breakups and the anger over some more pleasant, mellow sounds. “Sugar” isn’t bad, but it feels more like filler recycled off an old Garbage album more so any other song on the album.
But luckily the album doesn’t give up like most albums tend to do around track nine. “Battle in Me” jolts some electricity back in the system with its heavier guitar and Butch Vig’s aggressive percussion. “Man on Fire” has the best guitar-driven anger on the album with an almost White Stripes feel to it.
The album ends with a nice dichotomy to the opening track with the super-mellow “Beloved Freak.” While the first is angry toward the past, the last is hopeful to the future and a nice reminder that we all go through this crazy shit when it comes to relationships.
Garbage has returned to prove they’re my kind of people with quite an impressive album. Not Your Kind of People is the kind of album you can listen to straight through as even the weaker songs fit in well enough with the sound that you don’t notice they’re not as good. Even people that never really liked Garbage or were just being born in the ‘90s will still be able to get into the beautiful mix of electronic resonances, guitars, bass, beats and Shirley Manson. No one will be leaving thisGarbage by the side of the curb.