Album reviewOn 2021's No Gods No Masters, Garbage were in a critical mood—of racism, sexism, misogyny, capitalism. For their eighth album, the band is still highly aware of all the conflicts and ugliness in the world. However, singer Shirley Manson has said, "we all thought that if we immersed ourselves in indignation we would probably die of a broken heart." Instead, they set out with the mission of "finding love in the world as a tool to combat all the hate we feel." Let All That We Imagine Be the Light picks up immediately after they finished writing songs for their last record (and from even before they released it), with "There's No Future Iin Optimism" setting the scene in Los Angeles during 2020's protests against police violence. "The night is dark and full of terror/ The air is thick with helicopters/ People marching, cops are swarming/ The city's on fire and the sirens are screaming," Manson growls. And yet … it's a galloping groove with sexy-beast riffs and—look up—a glimmer of positivity: "The sky's so beautiful, the stars are wild."
Refusing to accept the idea that women grow more invisible as they age, 58-year-old Manson literally declares "I'm not dead/ I'm not done" on "Chinese Fire Horse," a thick slice of joyous guitar rock that, with its great trampoline rhythm, sounds like liberation. The title is a nod to her birth year's (1966) place in the Chinese zodiac—when astrologers predicted both the passion of the horse and transformative energy of fire. It's not the only time she gets personal. Set to a confident hip-hop beat and shot through with twinkling sci-fi synth, "The Day That I Met God" details the great sense of mortality, but also gratitude, that struck Manson in the gut after she fell off a stage while performing and had to have her hip replaced. "I met God" she stage-whispers—the band having decided to keep her raw demo vocals—before detailing over tender piano, "And so there I was, face to face with God/ Who was everyone I'd ever loved." Her sighs are stacked to heavenly choir heights on "Sisyphus" and she practically purrs on "Have We Met (The Void)," which comes on like high-drama goth, complete with Butch Vig's drums kicking down the door. "Radical" manages to evoke both Depeche Mode and slinky trip-hop. "R U Happy Now" is a high-cardio dance track. "Love to Give" is powered by timpani flourishes, lightning flashes of blinding snare and a dark undercurrent. And when Manson sings the singular title of sultry "Hold" in a sharp, almost paranoid falsetto, it highlights her ancestral influence on the likes of Karen O.
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Shelly Ridenour/Qobuz 
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