In these dumpster fire times we’re living in, did you really think she’d let all the horror go unchecked?
On Garbage’s seventh offering, No Gods No Masters (a slogan for anarchists and labor unions alike), Garbage’s redheaded Molotov cocktail explodes at evangelicals apathetically offering prayers after shootings, “The Men Who Rule the World,” shitty men in general (in case they don’t rule the world), and, as is often the case on a Garbage record, herself.
What I like most about the album (and Garbage in general) is the sound they carve out, where everything has a place.
As a whole, No Gods No Masters reads as an album about deep societal frustrations. Yet it manages to feel light and airy in moments, like the humorously titled, Pet Shop Boys-adjacent “Flipping the Bird.” The emotional texture of each track is what makes it rise above a collection of empty, sloganistic statements. Garbage still have that irreverent spirit they’ve always had, and it’s a delight to see that the world’s horrors haven’t changed that; they’re still here serving dissatisfied, withering gazes at a decaying society, just like they were back when they moaned about their rainy day gloom.
Or as Kory Grow suggests:
It’s like Nine Inch Nails’ downward spiral if Trent Reznor turned his hatred outward and used a mirror ball.
Place between Depeche Mode and Chvrches.