Artist: Marilyn Manson
Album: Heaven Upside Down
Label: Loma Vista Recordings
Release Date: October 6, 2017
Your Savior
Written by Silas Valentino
Ten albums in and 23 years after his debut, Marilyn Manson is having a second-coming of the antichrist.
Goth and industrial metal’s Alice Cooper’s latest is a cinematic nightmare underscored by political dread. It’s also his second collaboration with guitarist, producer and overall instrumental madman Tyler Bates. This seasoned film composer–whose resume includes creating the haunting sounds to 2004’s Dawn of the Dead, 2007’s Halloween and 2008’s The Day the Earth Stood Still (not to mention the explosive Guardians of the Galaxy)–exhibit Bates’s ability to recalculate horror without losing the tongue-in-cheek silliness. A perfect match for an infamous front man who once told everyone he removed two of his ribs so that he could autofellatio.
Manson’s command of his brooding brand and Bates’s heavy metal late-night prowls were first united in 2015’s The Pale Emperor, the band’s most successful record in a decade. The two musicians continue to massage each other’s demons across Heaven Upside Down, the band’s tenth album. It’s a clean, 10-cut rock record that unfurls track-by-track like scenes in a Rob Zombie horror remake; a narration done with the upmost intent, as Manson (née Brian Hugh Warner) explained in Rolling Stone magazine last month:
“Now, when I make a record, I want it to be like a movie,” he said. “When you see or hear this song, it’s like a scene in a movie, and if you accomplish that scene well, you’re going to want to see the next scene, see what happens next. I think I got that from seeing Bowie early on.”
So what’s the story, morning gory?
Album opener “Revelation 12” provides us with an, believe it or not, ominous scene. Bates crafts thrash with sheer-cut guitar riffs packed tight against Gil Sharone’s relentless drumming while Manson tells of a town, with no firemen, burning as they “paint the town red with the blood of the tourists.” Possibly an intense allegory for the current state of affairs for the band’s home country or maybe this Halloween town is a reference point for us to reflect our woes in an attempt to gain perspective. We might be in the throes of national apathy but at least our tourists can keep their vital fluids.
“WE KNOW WHERE YOU FUCKING LIVE”, the album’s lead single, was released on September 11 this year and no political rock is left un rattled. “Let’s make something clear/We’re all recording this as it happens” Mason begins, condemning our camera phone culture that interprets reality through a dehumanized lens. “So what’s a nice place like this doing ‘round people like us?” he continues, lamenting the failure in America’s supposed great experiment. Over placid verses and violent choruses, “WE KNOW WHERE YOU FUCKING LIVE” dispels an old American myth–that destiny has manifested solely for us and this pursuit offsets the horrific means we use to get there–and leaves us in a condition where “They won’t even recognize your corpse.”
The album’s most accessible moment is its title track, a climax, if you will, to this cinematic thriller. Using an acoustic guitar and even a verse comprised of only sugarcoated “ah ah ohs”, “Heaven Upside Down” could infiltrate a pop rock radio station to allow Manson to broadcast a blaring siren to his countrymen. “And I tried to look inside you/I ended up looking through you/Now, you try to tell me/You’re not a ghost” Manson opines.
If art reflects society, then in its own demented way Marilyn Manson is the face of a country looking into the mirror, spooked by its reflection.