ALBUM RECOMMENDATIONS |

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The old five-point scale has been retired in favor of just rating stuff 1-10, which allows me a much more nuanced final rating. Still don't take it that seriously. Most of these come from my own collection, so the grades skew rather high. Your results may vary if you send me stuff to review.

Each album is given three Essential tracks, my personal favorites, regardless of how weird and inconsequential they are. The Quintessential pick is the one I think best represents the album as a whole, so you can try one song instead of a whole album of songs. Non-Essential picks range from merely disappointing to outright unlistenable.

Garbage

[#] Strange Little Birds (2016)

Reviewed February 11, 2022

They were more fun before they grew up.

(This is an album that was previously covered on the Rediscovering! Click the link in the table to read my first impressions, or read on for how they might have changed.)

I've grappled with why this record doesn't click with me for literal years now. It's not for lack of merit; Garbage's four members are seasoned veterans, capable of summoning at will the kinds of moody rock and electronica they used to seemingly stumble on accidentally on twenty years ago. It's not even necessarily for lack of songs! "Blackout" marries this chorused, 80s Cure bassline with one of Shirley Manson's most strikingly hissed vocal performances. "Magnetized" buzzes and kicks just like the back half of beautifulgarbage, my preferred Garbage record. "Even Though Our Love is Doomed" is apparently first-take perfection, a cinematic crawl where Shirley seems at her most lucid and vulnerable. What isn't to love here?

Maybe it's all of the above. Strange Little Birds oozes midnight from all corners, overnight rain showers that seem just a bit too tidy. The little touches of sampled, malfunctioning equipment, oddly repitched guitars, or their sense of humor about their sadness are are replaced with absolutely immaculate trip-hop soundscapes and a very mature look at jealousy, insecurity, and coming to grips with old fears. Highly respectable material for an aging band, but I can't say it really does much for me personally, and even Version 2.0 gave us abandoned factory drum loops every so often. This is by no means a bad album, and if you want Garbage, you'll get it here. It's just a shame how the band's spontaneity and playfulness can't seem to come with them into middle age.

Essential:	Quintessential:	Non-Essential:	Rating:
"Blackout", "Even Though Our Love is Doomed", "Magnetized"	"Night Drive Loneliness"	"Teaching Little Fingers to Play"
Strange Little Birds' Rediscovering entry

NOFI | LOFI