Without a warning by local radio or TV-video plays MARILYN MANSON come(s) up with a new album called The High End Of Low. Some years ago I wouldn’t have given a f… about this as I couldn’t stand the music, which ran under “useless nu-metal shit” in my opinion, and I nearly hated the “wanna-be psycho” Mr. Manson himself. But as the years passed by my opinion has somehow changed. Without really knowing why the music was at least tolerable and by changing from the sicko-prosthesis-freak image to the really cool “the twenties meets burlesque” optic together with the interviews I read the person MARIYLN MANSON seemed a lot more interesting to me. Up to this day I haven’t heard a complete album which puts me in a rather fine position for reviewing The High End Of Low as I can listen to it as a nearly complete “newbie” to MARILY MANSON’s sound and there’s no way of “bah – the music was way better on the first albums”. So – here we go…
The major part of The High End Of Low sounds definitely different than I had expected. Ok – his voice, the way of singing and some standard tracks clearly show that you got a MARILYN MANSON album in your player but The High End Of Low has a lot of fresh and new influences and comes up with some really interesting and enjoyable songs. After the first two more or less generic songs (at least to a “only-knowing-the-former-singles” listener) Leave A Scar comes up with some nice acoustic guitars. The track nearly sounds relaxed but on the contrary has a heavy stomping beat and is really catchy. This stomping style is also found on the following track Four Rusted Horses which replaces the acoustic guitars with a nearly country sounding steel guitar, making the track extremely cool and unusual. With a lot of “old” Manson influences, some NIN quotes and a White Zombie like groove Arma-Goddam-Motherfuckin-Geddon is the first real hit in terms of dancefloor killer. Due to that the next track Blank And White with its poppy and the somehow Industrial Blues sound (I can’t name it other) comes along even more fresh and – in a positive way – strange. Unfortunately after this track some quite uninteresting and nearly boring tracks follow, making the middle part of The High End Of Low a lot more weaker. I Want To Kill You Like They Do In The Movies, WOW and Wight Spider are too hardy, bulky and to some point even annoying, taking away a lot of the freshness of the former third of the album. The rather slow but catchy refrain-infused Unkillable Monster and the electro-punkish We’re From America finally bring back the new spirit and mark the last third of The High End Of Low, which then again is really worth listening.
So the most songs on The High End Of Low present themselves as groovy midtempo tracks and sounding relaxed and heavy as well, giving the listener some real new and MARILYN MANSON untypical fun. Without the weak part in the middle this could have been a real highlight. Anyway - The High End Of Low is a real good and enjoyable album. Though it’s not a must-have and will not bring me to get myself older MM stuff it’s at least more than listenable and if you have some money left you should give this a try.