Yahoo! Music Review

Released on 04/06/07
Label: Polydor

America has always had a sideshow tradition. From the carneys, hucksters and blackface minstrels of the late 19th century, to the Cold War era of William Castle (director of 1959 classic "The Tingler", which placed electric shocks under the seats of audiences), Roger Corman and John Waters, this has always been a WASP-ish nation in shock and in love with being shocked. It's what Hollywood was built on. Latterly, audiences have been thrilled by the whole "horror porn" genre (such as the gruesome "Saw" and "Hostel") while in rock'n'roll the long list of moral miscreants reaches back from Elvis and Jerry Lee to Alice Cooper, Kiss, Ozzy Osbourne (who might as well be American) and Trent Renzor.

Marilyn Manson fits easily within this group of would-be iconoclasts. Choosing his name well, the boy formerly known as Brian Warner has pushed Christian neo-conservative panic buttons for more than a decade with a combination of goose-stepping, make-up and Satanism. As with Renzor, this heady brew has also provided entertainment for (or milked, depending on your point of view) a whole generation of disaffected suburban teenagers; a small minority of whom have a penchant for wearing overcoats, dropping out and embarking upon gun-happy killing sprees.

Though tragic, these incidents have all been grist to Manson's mill - getting him banned, grabbing headlines and generally making him appear incontestably controversial. Unfortunately, there's only so long this illusion can last, especially when you're hitting 40. Take Alice Cooper, for instance - one moment he's decapitating dwarves and causing church ministers to spontaneously combust, the next he's making adverts for satellite television alongside Ronnie Corbett. Similarly, if "Antichrist Superstar" and "Mechanical Animals" presented the self-styled 'God of F*ck' with his enduring image of disease and pestilence, "Eat Me Drink Me" sounds like the sort of album to turn Marilyn Manson into a cuddlier, more mainstream figure.

Chock full of hammy-sounding song titles like "If I Was Your Vampire", "Mutilation Is The Most Sincere Form Of Flattery" and - a personal favourite - "They Said That Hell's Not Hot", it's mostly akin to witnessing Dracula lift his cloak of darkness, only to reveal a slightly nerdy man in make-up. Put simply, this is B-Movie rock: from the death rattle vocals, to the clichéd riffs and hackneyed subject matter. By the end, the enduring impression is that Manson is simply tired of whoring round the same old shtick and wanting to head someplace else - most probably some kind of future MTV reinvention a la Ozzy, Gene and Tommy.

Certainly, it somewhat pops the bubble of the hardcore performance artist with evil running through his veins and death tattooed on his heart. In all honesty, Marilyn Manson probably a pussycat who loves his mum and a round of golf. In other words, it's time for America to stop worrying and start searching for the next bete-noire anti-hero of the trenchcoat mafia. Bring on "666 Idol" - coming soon to a screen near you...

    by Adam Webb