Label: Stunvolume / Infectious Music
Released: 11th June 2021
Rating: ★★★★
On their seventh studio album, alt-rock pioneers Garbage have crafted their punkiest and most experimental material to date.
Ever the band to address the unusual, ‘No Gods No Masters’ specifically looks at the chaos of the past 12 months, and translates it into their own unorthodox sonic palette that has served them as music masteries for nearly three decades.
Sampling slot machines, ‘The Men Who Rule The Word’ opens the album and is a bizarre industrial meets new-wave sociopolitical statement echoing the avant-garde nature of the whole album. It transforms into album highlight ’The Creeps’ – which is the most guitar-driven track the band have done in years with its unruly post-punk. ‘Godhead’ on the other hand is futuristic electronica guided by Shirley’s sensual vocals, whilst the title track powers on through high velocity warped electro-pop. Their signature oversaturated production supercharges each track, even on the more solemn moments (‘Waiting For God’ poignantly addresses police brutality and gun crime in the States)
‘No Gods No Masters’ is Garbage utilising their title as rock’s weirdos, and crafting a body of work that stays devoted to the abnormal and disregarded through unflinching experimentation, eccentricity and punk ethos.
