Marilyn Manson - Heaven Upside Down (Album Review)
Monday, 09 October 2017
Written by Alec Chillingworth
Despite not doing anything truly culturally noteworthy in an awfully long time, Marilyn Manson remains a pop culture boogeyman, a haunting reminder to any mums and dads who lived through the '90s. Nothing can bury this man. He is here to stay, the God of Fuck looming large in an ill-fitting corset.
Twenty-three years and 10 albums in, you’d think that the well would’ve run dry for Brian Warner. But with 2015’s ‘The Pale Emperor’ he discovered the blues and just about reinvented himself. It was still menacing, but the sexiness and allure lay in subtlety and hip-swinging rather than buzzsaw guitars and slogans to stick on the back of a shirt.
‘Heaven Upside Down’, though, finds Manson stuck in a musical limbo of his own making. Here he uncovers elements of his back catalogue that have remained untouched for years, but with decidedly mixed results.
WE KNOW WHERE YOU FUCKING LIVE and Revelation #12 hang on the crepuscular guitar tone ‘Antichrist Superstar’ revelled in 21 years ago, with the former fizzling and the latter seeming a tad regressive, lazy and stunted.
KILL4ME, meanwhile, is an ‘Eat Me, Drink Me’ cut with a tonne more pizzazz thanks to its 4/4 swing and the sort of synth-wave chorus that’s become ubiquitous post the world-conquering success of Stranger Things.
Of course, nothing can take away from the fact that this is Marilyn Manson. His croaks, his whispers, his now-strained scream, it’s all him. He is still unique in his oddness. No matter how ropey he’s been live over the past decade, Manson’s voice is in fine form here and he excels on the blackened blues of closing track Threats of Romance.
He sounds rejuvenated. One suspects this has a lot to do with collaborator Tyler Bates, who’s giving this rock star shit another go after masterminding ‘The Pale Emperor’. He lends ‘Heaven Upside Down’ a cohesive, soundtrack-esque quality thanks to his work on, y’know, blockbuster movies and TV shows.
In a way, this songwriting partnership is akin to Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross in Nine Inch Nails: a tortured ‘90s icon teaming up with someone who can bring real scope to the process, tying it all together in a way a nihilistic metalhead just can’t. Bates is the thing glueing all Manson’s musical personas, all these wildly juxtaposing parts together without them feeling like disjointed throwbacks. For the most part.
And with that lies the problem: Manson could do with dropping the whole evil bastard shtick. Doing so worked wonders on ‘The Pale Emperor’ because, no matter how hard he tries, he’s not public enemy number one anymore. At his core he’s a wordsmith, a showman, a legacy act – and that’s not a diss.
With ‘The Pale Emperor’, he proved that he still had something to say. He still has something to say on ‘Heaven Upside Down’, but with Revelation #12’s silly police sirens and JE$US CRI$I$’s pointless provocations, Manson finds himself occasionally saying the wrong things.
Marilyn Manson Upcoming Tour Dates are as follows:
Mon December 04 2017 - MANCHESTER O2 Apollo
Tue December 05 2017 - GLASGOW O2 Academy Glasgow
Wed December 06 2017 - WOLVERHAMPTON Civic Hall
Fri December 08 2017 - NEWPORT Newport Centre
Sat December 09 2017 - LONDON SSE Arena, Wembley
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