Post by darkling1219 on May 16, 2012 8:43:02 GMT -5
TizzyArt
3.5/5
www.tizzysart.com/en/music-review/not-your-kind-of-people/
The long awaited follow up to 2005’s Bleed Like Me, Garbage’s latest album comes as an interesting proposal in a current musical market that’s filled with failed attempts at music, rock bands with overgrown egos and singers who can’t sing that much after all.
In other words, Garbage is back with a vengeance to show people how to rock.
That’s not to say it is such an easy task, however. Through its almost twenty years on the scene, Garbage has gone through more than a couple break ups, most lasting years on end, personal problems and all the kind of drama one would expect from a 90’s rock band. However, the hardest thing going against the success of the band’s new musical proposal was called Bleed Like Me, the band’s lackluster 2005 effort.
Thankfully, Not Your Kind of People comes off as a very different style than the rough-edged rock presented in Bleed Like Me, instead going for a complete throwback to the band’s roots and even Manson’s earlier material: Not Your Kind of People is, at its core, a homage to all the kinds of music that Garbage has produced over its nearly twenty years.
From the first track, the angsty, oddly-titled Automatic System Habit, Manson & Company show that they mean business when they decided to get back together, the album being made up of mainly upbeat or at least strongly backed songs, choosing the quirky sound that helped the band rise to fame back in the 90s when grunge was still the style of rock to play (For the younger people, Grunge was the nu-rock of the 90’s. No version of it has yet been featured this decade.) From there on, the album puts the listener on a musical rollercoaster that, rather than showing how much the band has grown since its creation, revives the types of sounds the band is most known for. That is how Big Bright World becomes highly reminiscent of Manson’s previous career with Angelfish and Blood For Poppies sounds like a mixture between Bleed Like Me and Beautifulgarbage, while the latter half of the album turns moodier and more electronically oriented while still keeping the Garbage flavor on itself.
For the latter half of the album the music, though darker, keeps the level of the first half, even when it does become a bit harder to get into due to its style being less mainstream. Nevertheless, it has its own jewels – Felt is a strong rock song with ethereal vocals that evokes a mixture between Garbage and Bleed Like Me, Sugar is reminiscent of the B-side Sleep while Battle In Me and Man On A Wire could both be considered the Boys Wanna Fight of Not Your Kind of People. That said, I shall give props to the album for its closing track – Beloved Freak is probably the only proper ballad of the record, the quietest song and without a doubt one of its highlights – A closing song that’s moody and becomes the So Like a Rose of the album, although it is much less depressive than the track it resembles, its lyrics this time around being based around strength rather than sadness.
All things said, Not Your Kind of People isn’t exactly the kind of album I was expecting from Garbage after all these years and, in all honesty, it sounds like the band has barely grown since their 2005 effort. Thought doubtlessly fun and a serious step up from their previous album, there’s still something missing from Not Your Kind of People, something the first three albums of the band had: Originality. Fourteen years after its release, I haven’t found a single rock album that does the perfect mixture of styles Version 2.0 did, the strong lyrics and odd, yet engaging mixture of pop and rock found in Beautifulgarbage eleven years ago or even the angsty rock from Garbage, released seventeen years ago. Garbage is today one of the strongest rock bands due to its own story and the amount of time they have existed, but the truth is they have had problems with crafting truly engaging material in the form of albums during the last eleven years and, sadly, Not Your Kind of People isn’t here to show the world Bleed Like Me was a misstep.
Though still experimental to some extent, it shows the band is no longer trying to do new things or pull musical antics like the one where they recorded a chunk of Version 2.0 in an abandoned candy factory for its peculiar acoustics. Instead, rather than trying to rock out again, Not Your Kind of People is an attempt to show the world the way in which Garbage used to rock, something that, though not a bad thing, isn’t exactly how the band should’ve made its comeback after seven years of absence in the market.
The Good: It feels like a showcase of the reasons why Garbage became known to begin with, with many throwbacks to previous works by the band members going as far as Angelfish. Standout songs include "Blood for Poppies", "Big Bright World", "I Hate Love", "Felt" and the moody closing song, "Beloved Freak".
The Bad: The album doesn't even seem to try to bring anything new to the table, instead rehashing the musical styles Garbage is well known for. Several of the songs ("Battle In Me", "Man On A Wire") retain too much from Garbage's previous album.
3.5/5
www.tizzysart.com/en/music-review/not-your-kind-of-people/
The long awaited follow up to 2005’s Bleed Like Me, Garbage’s latest album comes as an interesting proposal in a current musical market that’s filled with failed attempts at music, rock bands with overgrown egos and singers who can’t sing that much after all.
In other words, Garbage is back with a vengeance to show people how to rock.
That’s not to say it is such an easy task, however. Through its almost twenty years on the scene, Garbage has gone through more than a couple break ups, most lasting years on end, personal problems and all the kind of drama one would expect from a 90’s rock band. However, the hardest thing going against the success of the band’s new musical proposal was called Bleed Like Me, the band’s lackluster 2005 effort.
Thankfully, Not Your Kind of People comes off as a very different style than the rough-edged rock presented in Bleed Like Me, instead going for a complete throwback to the band’s roots and even Manson’s earlier material: Not Your Kind of People is, at its core, a homage to all the kinds of music that Garbage has produced over its nearly twenty years.
From the first track, the angsty, oddly-titled Automatic System Habit, Manson & Company show that they mean business when they decided to get back together, the album being made up of mainly upbeat or at least strongly backed songs, choosing the quirky sound that helped the band rise to fame back in the 90s when grunge was still the style of rock to play (For the younger people, Grunge was the nu-rock of the 90’s. No version of it has yet been featured this decade.) From there on, the album puts the listener on a musical rollercoaster that, rather than showing how much the band has grown since its creation, revives the types of sounds the band is most known for. That is how Big Bright World becomes highly reminiscent of Manson’s previous career with Angelfish and Blood For Poppies sounds like a mixture between Bleed Like Me and Beautifulgarbage, while the latter half of the album turns moodier and more electronically oriented while still keeping the Garbage flavor on itself.
For the latter half of the album the music, though darker, keeps the level of the first half, even when it does become a bit harder to get into due to its style being less mainstream. Nevertheless, it has its own jewels – Felt is a strong rock song with ethereal vocals that evokes a mixture between Garbage and Bleed Like Me, Sugar is reminiscent of the B-side Sleep while Battle In Me and Man On A Wire could both be considered the Boys Wanna Fight of Not Your Kind of People. That said, I shall give props to the album for its closing track – Beloved Freak is probably the only proper ballad of the record, the quietest song and without a doubt one of its highlights – A closing song that’s moody and becomes the So Like a Rose of the album, although it is much less depressive than the track it resembles, its lyrics this time around being based around strength rather than sadness.
All things said, Not Your Kind of People isn’t exactly the kind of album I was expecting from Garbage after all these years and, in all honesty, it sounds like the band has barely grown since their 2005 effort. Thought doubtlessly fun and a serious step up from their previous album, there’s still something missing from Not Your Kind of People, something the first three albums of the band had: Originality. Fourteen years after its release, I haven’t found a single rock album that does the perfect mixture of styles Version 2.0 did, the strong lyrics and odd, yet engaging mixture of pop and rock found in Beautifulgarbage eleven years ago or even the angsty rock from Garbage, released seventeen years ago. Garbage is today one of the strongest rock bands due to its own story and the amount of time they have existed, but the truth is they have had problems with crafting truly engaging material in the form of albums during the last eleven years and, sadly, Not Your Kind of People isn’t here to show the world Bleed Like Me was a misstep.
Though still experimental to some extent, it shows the band is no longer trying to do new things or pull musical antics like the one where they recorded a chunk of Version 2.0 in an abandoned candy factory for its peculiar acoustics. Instead, rather than trying to rock out again, Not Your Kind of People is an attempt to show the world the way in which Garbage used to rock, something that, though not a bad thing, isn’t exactly how the band should’ve made its comeback after seven years of absence in the market.
The Good: It feels like a showcase of the reasons why Garbage became known to begin with, with many throwbacks to previous works by the band members going as far as Angelfish. Standout songs include "Blood for Poppies", "Big Bright World", "I Hate Love", "Felt" and the moody closing song, "Beloved Freak".
The Bad: The album doesn't even seem to try to bring anything new to the table, instead rehashing the musical styles Garbage is well known for. Several of the songs ("Battle In Me", "Man On A Wire") retain too much from Garbage's previous album.