Garbage

Version 2.0

Garbage...ahem

Review Score:

(4/10)
I'm going to avoid making any bad garbage/trash jokes and explain precisely why the eagerly anticipated follow-up to Garbage's seminal debut is only worthy of two stars. Quite simply, it's so good it's really awful. Confused? Let me elaborate...

Every song on this album is great. You listen to it and realise just how far Garbage has matured as a band. The songs are incredibly well written, the vocals fit perfectly with the music, the loops slide seamlessly into one another, it's catchy, it's harmonious, it's...well, to be honest, dull. I listened to the whole album and during every song I said to myself: "This is really good." But it fails as music in some indefinable way because I have no emotional attachment with the songs. It's like a painting on the wall: a 2-D object that's beautiful to look at, but can only be viewed from one direction and is always going to look the same. I don't mean to criticise a great band: this album is one of the most brilliantly-crafted works of art ever produced, but it just feels dead. I know many will disagree, but to me it has no life, no soul, and there is no tangible reason why this should be so. There's something missing, and for the life of me I can't work out what or where. I have no idea why this album doesn't work, but it just doesn't.

Fans of the original's diversity, creativity, sensitivity and flair will probably be disappointed with this album because it cuts back on the variation and differentiation of each song and goes more for an overall aural aesthetic. On the first album it sounded like they were playing around to find a sound they liked; on `Version 2.0', they've found it, and as such it feels more like an album than a collection of singles. Like I said: Garbage as a band has matured. Songs like `Medication' (the only one that, for me, plucks at my emotional heart-strings) and `Paranoid' show this cleaner, more proficient song-writing talent. It's just a shame that somewhere in the transition from experimentalists to a band with their own definitive style, Garbage threw something in the trash. (Well, I had to do one, didn't I - you were expecting it!)

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