ROCKET REVIEW: MARILYN MANSON “Eat Me, Drink Me” (CD)

The first question I asked myself when sitting down to conduct this critical review for the latest CD from one of rock n roll’s most disturbing performers ever, and might I add, torturously pondered like a Twilight Zone-inspired repeating porn snuff film in a constant horrified-flicker loop, is Marilyn Manson any longer heavy metal… was he ever? Did the twisted-like macabre’ish midnight twin car wreck Industrial/Goth heavy music he’s so well known for over the years ever seriously find its way into the heart of metal loyalists? Manson is no Iron Maiden’s ‘Number Of The Beast’… nor Motley Crue’s ‘Shout At The Devil’, both legendary metal works that I (unlike most the critics who are weighing in on this matter currently) actually owned at their time of release and witnessed the supporting live concerts. He has never been anywhere within the realm of Slayer, for who he now finds himself on tour with in ’07.

And no matter the conjecture one could arrive at on either side of the coin, where the hell is he now truly musically speaking? Moreover, why the f#@! am I wasting one ounce of precious time at all on this review of his new album ‘Eat Me, Drink Me’ off Interscope Records when I could be reviewing Cephalic Carnage’s newest offering? I think what is most fascinating and respectful about Manson’s career to date as an artist is that he certainly is one of the rare pop world entities who actually attempts to push the boundaries of his or her work in the ultimate approach for political/social self expression, and in this case, excuse the pun, amid the brevity one need give thanks to Manson’s continued overwhelming androgynous stage and personal life appearance forever inspired by Alice Cooper, more than any one single artist matter-of-factly who has ever taken the stage since ole Vincent Damon Furnier did in the early 70’s. The first thing that strikes me odd with this new material from the master of mixing masculine and feminine characteristics is that it sounds like the guitar work employed here by infamous swedish glam metaler Tim Skold (Shotgun Messiah) is ominously inspired by a somehow pentagram-scarred Neil Young… yes, that’s right… Neil fucking Young.

Let me clarify something for everyone,  just on the happenstance that anyone reading this is somewhere between a black hole and the vast cosmos of a dead person’s soul… Neil Young’s music is the furthest thing from the metal term that could ever possibly be mentioned with it in the same sentence. From the opener’s melancholy ‘If I Was Your Vampire’ with the cannibalistic reference in lyric: “If I was your vampire, certain as the moon, instead of killing time, we’ll have each other… until the sun” — to the totally wrung out wet-tissue act from sobbing over a lost love’ in ‘Putting Holes In Happiness’,  the content Manson delivers with Skold I dare say is quite possibly the most chilling and mature work the musical nightmare come to life has ever laid down in the studio. Taking the praise one step deeper into the blackest abyss of flattery, Skold’s guitar solo on ‘Red Carpet Grave’ sounds like Jimi Hendrix showed up from his crushed-velvet lined coffin to lend a skeletonized hand. ‘They Said That Hell’s Not Hot’ follows with the haunted verse line: “I kill myself in small amounts in each relationship”, certainly a brutally-veiled comment on Manson’s recent (and very public) failed marriage to ice queen stripper Dita Von Teese.

The next cuts do stray a bit off the original mark of the first moody soul-stirrers, nonetheless ‘Just A Car Crash Away’, ‘Heart-Shaped Glasses (When The Heart Guides The Hand)’ and ‘Evidence’ are still dished to us in creepy-crawly classic Manson-form. Skold’s 80’s-style guitar sound here is at most evident, sounding at times as if maybe Police-man Andy Summers (who actually was one of the first Brit’s to ever hear Jimi Hendrix and The Experience) was overseeing the studio sessions himself. But it’s ‘Are You The Rabbit?’ that we are finally given the true goods in the matter from the clown prince of Satanic-worshipping. Almost so Bowie-drenched in its vocal syrup and ‘knock you back into your electric chair’ riffing reminiscent of Sweet and Kiss that it sends chills down your spine with sheer glee. The chaotic and go-for-gore thrill lyrics here: “Hand on my gears. And I’ll choke on all the diamonds, Like a vulture, On your face.” are met in full rock n roll bravado by more of Skold’s utter electric guitar brilliance.

The final three tracks: ‘Mutilation Is The Most Sincere Form Of Flattery’, ‘You And Me And The Devil Makes 3’ and the album’s title track ‘Eat Me, Drink Me’ are as convincing in their vengeful poetic-spirit as the first half of this masterpiece, clearly anwering my initial question: “Is Marilyn Manson metal?” I think it’s easy to see why this guy can show up to metal bills time and time again (Ozzfest 2003 anyone?) outright burying the competition of prancing nu-metalers and gutsy, old school hardcore moshers. Manson is unmatched with his uncanny rampant-alarm of doomed life drunken down proudly in a glinting gold chalice for all of us to die by.

Visit Marilyn Manson on MySpace:

http://www.myspace.com/marilynmanson