The Girl With the Manson Eyes

They're back!

As I was driving to work today, I heard a relative blast from the past. My jaw dropped: after four long years of silence, Garbage is rocking the airwaves again with their distinct electropop-punk sound.

I'm sure some of you people still remember the band fronted by Shirley Manson and her in-your-face vocals. How about the songs: "Stupid Girl", "Only Happy When It Rains", "I Think I'm Paranoid" "The Trick is to Keep Breathing", "Push It"? Yup, that's them.

A look at the site contains some suspicions I've held during the long wait: the band almost did break-up, the reason behind their hiatus:

Even so, making albums has always been a tumultuous business for Garbage. Voices are habitually raised and doors slammed. During the recording of their forthcoming Bleed Like Me album, Manson believes the band came as close as they have ever done to splitting up. Communications had reached an all-time low; on the rare occasions that they talked, all they did was argue. Then one day Vig announced he was going home to LA. "I think he felt he had quit at the time," recalls Manson. "I don't think any of us knew whether we would get back together. The rot had really set in and the experience of making music together had become unpleasant."

So what made them go back and finish the album? "I think we get on very well as people, otherwise we wouldn't have been able to sustain a career for this long. We had a long talk about what we wanted to achieve as musicians, regardless of the business that had grown up around our band. We came to the conclusion that we have a really good chemistry and a unique sound. It sounds ridiculously simple now, of course, but we decided to drop the bullshit and get on with making music."

Heh. Reminds me of another-- local band-- who could take a tip or two from them. Ironically, just as I discovered CDs and disposable incomes, the availability of Garbage's albums here has become suspect. Damn serendipity.

Ah well, it seems a long wait before their album is released worldwide: April 11.

Wala lang.