We’ve made it; the third and final post about Marilyn Manson’s latest piece of work The High End Of Low. There is definitely something satisfying about finally being able to listen to the album in it’s entirety, polished and finished without needing to question “will the final version sound anything like this?”. For those who haven’t read them, I wrote about the first released song We’re From America and the leaked demos, here and here respectively. And now, the “review”.
It became immediately obvious that the record was going to be slower on the whole, than the bands previous efforts. The first five songs in the album also happened to be the ones whos demos became public a few months ago, and it definitely comes as a relief to hear them sounding much more polished and complete. Devour is a love song (of sorts), which being at the front of the album makes me think of it as a much shorter (by around half, thank fucking god) version of If I Was Your Vampire from Eat Me Drink Me. After Devour, you’re given a few seconds silence to get over the pace of the last song, before rocking out to the second track, Pretty As A Swastika. The title makes it seem like he’s grasping for anything that may shock people, but to little effect. Be that as it may, when the sound of Twiggy’s rusty guitar and Manson chanting “YEAH!” welcome you into the song, it feels a lot like something that would of come out of the recording sessions for Antichrist Superstar rather than anything he’d make in recent times.
The next few songs were all improved 100% from their demos, and make this sound like the album to “bring back the old Marilyn Manson”. Even Four Rusted Horses, while temporarily slowing down the tempo of the album (which is a little sporadic anyway), kept me much more interested than it had before. Arma-Goddamn-Motherfuckin-Geddon completely blew me away too; it is entirely deserving of being the first “official single”.
Speaking of which; the music video for the song was released the other day, and features clips which make direct references to the band back in the nineties, when they brought out Antichrist Superstar. The clip itself is really well done, and I love it:
The video is disabled for embedding on YouTube (because they’re a bunch of douchefags). Watch it on DoucheTube here.
I got a temporary lack of faith when the track Blank and White kicked in. The song, unlike the rest of the album, has more of a twang to begin with, which made me picture Marilyn Manson in overalls, playing a washboard. A piece of wheat dangling out the side of his mouth, and maybe a cow in the near background, chewing on some cud. On closer look, you notice that one of the buttons on Manson’s overalls has fallen off, making one of the straps dangle against his stomach.
Enough of that though; the song quickly hardens the fuck up and brings us what we expect of Manson…in a way. I found the song too trying on me, especially for four minutes worth. But if that’s long, then the next two songs go on forever. The aptly named Running To The Edge Of The World, which clocks in at over six minutes, slows down again, bringing in a more acoustic sounding guitar, and hits us with sad vocals much easier on the ears than when he belted out the harsh “ballad” Just A Car Crash Away on the last album. Then just over three and a half minutes into it, the song moves into VERY familiar territory. A small voice in falsetto spookily singing about death, almost exactly as in the title track from Holy Wood, In The Shadow Of The Valley Of Death.
Six minutes not long enough? Well, the next song tops that with EIGHT MOTHERFUCKING MINUTES. The song I Want To Kill You Like They Do In The Movies doesn’t really have much going for it. Being at around the same tempo as the previous track, the song is far more boring, trying to cover that up by seeing how many vocal tracks they can overlap before their software hits it’s limit. As long as you don’t pay much attention to it, the song is decent enough, for filler.
And that brings us to the track WOW. I didn’t say much on it, other than I really didn’t like it. However, listening to the album version now, I can say I was effectively, retarded. Like a motherfucker. The song hits me as being what Para-noir from Golden Age Of Grotesque would of sounded like, had you of removed the female vocals, and given it more influence from David Bowie. Much more influence. It reminds me of Golden Years to a degree.
Wight Spider once again sounds like Marilyn Manson attempting more Holy Wood-esque sounds, keeping with the same slow sound from the past few songs, and more angsty sad vocals. The song itself didn’t really appeal to me, and could of probably been dropped from the album completely and I doubt anyone except Manson would of missed it.
At this point, as soon as Unkillable Monster starts with MORE SLOW MUSIC, I can’t help but wonder if this is all that’s left for the album; that Manson and co didn’t just brainstorm for the new album and go “I know, let’s attempt to fill up the rest of the album with as many ballad type songs as human possible. That will really get the fans pumped!” Thank god, when we hit We’re From America, as repetitive as it is, we get to rock out a little. Shall I get my cock out? No? Then let us move on.
While the album lacks a title track (a first for Marilyn Manson’s major releases since Smells Like Children, which was named after an unrecorded track at the time), the song I Have To Look Up Just To See Hell serves as one anyway, repeating the title of the album numerous times. Only slightly faster than the previous four slow fucking songs (disregarding WOW and We’re From America entirely in that statement), the song is far more enjoyable; deep drums and screaming vocals fill it, and make for a decent listen.
Then we get to the wailing. There is always wailing. Why does there have to be wailing? I personally don’t want wailing. Into The Fire is pretty much exactly the same as it’s demo counterpart, and it shows that Marilyn Manson learned from the last album; it’s the only one to feature a full guitar solo, and as such is thoroughly enjoyable to hear.
The final track is…very unusual. 15 really can’t be described, and you need to hear it yourself. See what I did there? I didn’t talk about the entire album, leaving you with something that remains at least for the majority, a mystery. Do I mean weird as in the Untitled tracks from previous albums, or the hidden track that features in Smells Like Children to make you shit your pants? Find out.
To conclude, because every blog post needs a conclusion; the album is GOOD. I am so glad for that. You can hear multiple references to earlier eras of the band, and it seems there’s a fair bit of borrowed content from their past. However, for the most part, it is an enjoyable listen. My only complaint, is there is far too much sadness and and too many songs that could be called ballads. Not too happy about that, but hey, since when did it have to be perfect?
