Garbage

On the day Garbage gathered in Wisconsin to start work on their fourth record, they came up with the glittering and steely «Right Between the Eyes» in all of 30 minutes. Things would not go quite so well with BLEED LIKE ME again.

The band battled illness, surgery, creative disagreements, major life changes and — depending who you ask — either a break - up or a much-needed sabbatical. But nothing good comes easy… and BLEED LIKE ME is simply smashing. From the lusty, masochistic skronk of album opener «Bad Boyfriend» to the industrial-strength protest-pop of «Metal Heart» to the hauntingly transgressive title track, it’s everything that you’d expect from one of the past decade’s most acclaimed and innovative bands: Sexy, sonically ambitious, loud, emotionally fraught and catchy as can be.

«To me, personally, the very fact that it got finished is a miracle,» says singer Shirley Manson. But then, so is the very fact that Garbage has been at it for ten years. When Manson first hooked up with Butch Vig, Steve Marker and Duke Erikson, the band was pegged as «three producers and a girl.» Vig and Erikson had been, respectively, the drummer and the frontman for Midwestern guitar-pop favorites Spooner, as well as mid-‘80s college radio successes «Fire Town». Vig’s old college buddy Marker engineered Spooner’s very first recordings on a four-track in his basement; the two men went on to found Smart Studios, producing and engineering such seminal post-hardcore bands as Killdozer and Die Kreuzen. Then Vig manned the console for such landmark records as the Smashing Pumpkins’ «Gish» and of course, Nirvana’s «Nevermind», as well as discs by Sonic Youth, L7, House of Pain and Freedy Johnston.

Garbage was meant to be a lark, a way for three old friends to take advantage of success and have fun on the other side of the control room. But someone had to sing. «It was just going to be a blip in our personal history,» says Manson, who began her career playing keyboards in the Scottish combo Goodbye Mr. MacKenzie, then fronted her own band Angelfish.