Garbage! No Gods No Masters...

Although they might not be the first '90s band to come to mind, it's hard to overstate Garbage's long-lasting influence on "pop" music—you can hear the industrial yet accessible dance-floor rhythms in the songs of Lady Gaga, while Billie Eilish's darker twists and turns echo those of singer Shirley Manson. For the band's seventh album, released a quarter-century after they broke through, Garbage's formula isn't so different, but they've revitalized it with lyrics that fit a shaken-up world that feels like it's rapidly changing and also not changing fast enough.

"It was our way of trying to make sense of how fucking nuts the world is and the astounding chaos we find ourselves in," Manson has said—noting that the lyrics are critiques of racism, sexism, misogyny and capitalism. She comes out guns blazing on the industrial ass-shaker of an opener, The Men Who Rule the World: "The men who rule the world/ Have made a fucking mess/ The history of power/ The worship of success." Her past experience of being rejected as a solo artist by her record label—for being too noir—drives the high-speed chase sounds on The Creeps ("They were selling me cheap out there on the street … they got a gun against my head"). Waiting for God, inspired by the Black Lives Matter and #MeToo movements, is haunting and almost dirge-like as Manson explores the futility of hopes and prayers to deal with man's evil. Elsewhere, the ballad Uncomfortably Me snakes like '80s goth pop, Anonymous XXX slinks with a Latinx flair of driving drums and drunken horns sounds, and Manson's heaving whisper ("If I had a dick would you blow it?") prowls around a Depeche Mode-like dance-floor groove. But it's not all doom and gloom...

Flipping the Bird, as you would expect, is a lyrical kiss-off to people who pigeonhole, but it is as poppy-sounding as old hits like Only Happy When It Rains. This City Will Kill You (a warning to not be lulled into danger by glamour) indulges in a Roxy Music lushness. And the title track isn't just upbeat—it's hopeful. It was inspired by a trip Manson took to Santiago, Chile, witnessing protests against corruption and inequality. As she sings: "Be kind, beware/ Be good, don't be scared/ Nothing lasts and no one stays/ The same forever so accept the change."

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