I know I'm a bit late with this one and in future I promise to bring you reviews within a few days of when an album is released (or sometimes even earlier), but here goes:

Being a life-long (ok, not really, but he's been my favorite artist since I was 15) Marilyn Manson fan I was fucking stoked when I heard that the “High End of Low” was scheduled for release in May this year. The last record from the self-proclaimed God of Fuck (“Eat Me, Drink Me”) kinda sucked (apart from the single and the ballad) so I was hoping that Manson is finally over his divorce with Dita von Tesse and is ready to produce the nihilistic-self-loathing-slutty-electronic-hate-metal that I fell in love with eleven years ago. As usual, Manson claimed that this is going to be his best album ever. He also implicitly acknowledged that the last album was a bit gay, by saying that he's back and ready to rock and the album sounds like his best (not in my opinion) album up to date– the 1996 “Antichrist Superstar” which propelled him to pop-goth stardom.

Now that the album is out, we all know that it sounds FUCK ALL like “Antichrist Superstar”. Personally, I didn't want it to. I think that artists should evolve, not try sound like they did ten years ago. If they don't do that, they're just sad (like the Offspring). I just wanted “The High End of Low” to rock. After hearing the American-release only first song “We're from America” (to download which I had to google Jay Manuel's street address and submit it to verify that I'm a US citzen), I was pretty hopeful. The song wasn't that great, but it was certainly bitter, had brutal social-commentary and a mean industrial hook. My hopes were lifted even higher when I heard the single – the mouthful “Arma-goddam-motherfuckin-geddon”. That is a fucking great single if I ever heard one (and I heard many). Manson at his best. If you're a fan, you will love it, if you're not you won't get it. Signature death-march drum beat, combined with mean riffs and an anthem chorus. That's why I love Manson. BUT, the little voice at the back of my head kept telling me that you can't predict what a Manson album will sound like based on the single. If you don't believe me, listed to the first single of any of his albums and then the rest of the albums.

After listening to it in full, my first reaction was “eh”. Literally. Like “Eat Me, Drink Me”, “The High End of Low” also kinda sucks and I was busy debating with myself which was worse. My conclusion was that although the singles/anthems are waaaaay better on “The High End of Low”, overall the album sucks more. The reason? It lacks an overall theme even more that “Eat Me, Drink Me” did. What happened to the Manson that used to partition his albums, bringing in an overall structure that revolved around one central theme? “Antichrist Superstar”, “Mechanical Animals” and “Holy Wood (In the Shadow of the Valley of Death)” all had a protagonist, told a story, were metaphorical as hell and were FUCKING GENIUS. That is why I always considered Marilyn Manson as the only true artist (note: I'm using the term artist, not musician) in the modern music industry. His albums were true works of art, where the text added on to the music and had more literary terms and elements that Sylvia Plath and Emily Dickinson combined. Even the artwork had something hidden in it, which could help interpret the album further. The he lost it with the “Golden Age of Grotesque” and never found it again.

Is Marilyn Manson too old to rock? No, I think he's simply struggling to re-invent himself like he always used to. “The High End of Low” tries to put a few hard rock songs together with a number of beautiful ballads, an electronic-slutty-death-disco tune “WOW” and two angry anthems. It feels like Manson wanted to create a more “mature” album that was full of ballads and then just didn't/couldn't write enough good songs. So he took some B-sides, wrote an anthem and Frankensteined the whole thing together. The end result made me go “eh” for the first time ever after listening to a Manson album.

I would still recommend buying the album if you're a fan or even if you're just tired of the emo fag rock that fills the airwaves these days. “The High End of Low” has some beautiful ballads, which Manson should write more of. I don't care if he doesn't rock the way he used to – he can still write beautiful music and combine it with meaningful lyrics. Green Day is probably the best example of a band that creates amazing albums without trying to sound like they used to in the good old 1990s. Their music has evolved and matured with themselves. Not every artist can do it, but I still believe that Manson can. He still has a lot to say and I (and many others) are willing to listen. I just hope that in two year's time Manson will give an interview in which he won't allude to 1996 again but instead will say that the world should beware - his new album is nothing like it has ever heard before.