Weekly > Reviews
Garbage - Bleed Like Me
Oh you have to feel for Garbage a bit don’t you, back in 1995 / 1996 they seemed perfect didn’t they. They were filling the gap left by Nirvana in being everyone’s favourite rock band that it was ok to like even if you don’t like rock music, they were riding on the crest of the Brit-Pop wave where guitars were back in, despite the fact that they weren’t Brit-Pop and in Shirley Manson they had a slightly strange, but yet intruiging front woman who had enough sass to carry off the sexy frontwoman role to perfection.
Add onto this the fact that the self titled debut was a very good album, they did things a bit differently by bringing out limited edition vinyl versions of the singles, that were worth a mint at the time and we’ve said all that without even mentioning Butch Vig and the kudos that producing ‘Nevermind’ attached to the band through him (oops just mentioned it).
So where did it all go wrong for Shirley and Co?
Difficult to pinpoint one particular moment or time when things started to spiral downwards, after all they still have a fairly large following, the albums and singles have all sold and they still play to substantial crowds in large venues.
Maybe that’s it then… I saw them at a relatively small venue when they first toured and they had a fire in their belly that said we want to succeed, we want to be big…..we are going to be big. It’s probably a case of things becoming a little easy for them once they reached the stadium rock status they’d so obviously been striving for.
It certainly seems that way listening to ‘Bleed Like Me’. Yes it has the odd moment, where you just wonder if they still have the old magic, but that desire isn’t there within the songs, in many cases it’s rock by numbers and that just isn’t good enough for a band like Garbage.
- Garbage
- Bleed Like Me (2005)
- Category: Album
- Label: Warner Brothers
- Reviewed by: Kev
- Published on: 28 May 2005
- Comments: 0
- Beat Surrender Rating:
Weblinks
Add to favourites‘Bad Boyfriend’ is a prime example of that, back in 1995 they wouldn’t have been happy to have that on a b-side never mind it opening the album. That said ‘Run Baby Run’ could be there finest pop-rock moment since ‘I’m Only Happy When It Rains’, it’s got the chorus and melody to carry it through, unlike ‘Right Between The Eyes’ which does Shirley no favours at all as a vehicle for her voice. The average comeback single ‘Why Do You Love Me’ at least has a bit of bite, but even that sounds tired in and amongst the formulaic rock of the opening four tracks.
The album title track ‘Bleed Like Me’ is much better, it’s a chimming melody that broods and drifts along beautifully, probably the best moment on the album so far. The rumbling ‘Metal Heart’ is a worthy follow up track, unfortunately ‘Sex Is Not The Enemy’ turns out to be right, this song is. The gentle piano ballad of ‘It’s All Over But The Crying’ is a welcome distraction, but only for a moment as we get back to distorted rock on ‘Boys Wanna Fight’.
Finally with time running out we get another little hint that they may still be able to kick some arse when they get in the mood, ‘Why Don’t You Come Over’ is urgent and angry and not before time. As the album closes with ‘Happy Home’ i’m left wondering what the future holds for this band, so much potential shown all those years ago, but they look a second hand rock vehicle at the moment that is urgently in need of some repair if they are going to be a going concern moving forward.
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We waffle on enough without letting you lot do it too. Comments are limited to 300 characters.
Try and keep on topic if you can and no insulting the contributors. All hate mail can be addressed to Kev.