Better than "Eat Me, Drink Me."by luciferic

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May 31, 2009: After 2007's mixedly reviewed "Eat Me, Drink Me"; Marilyn Manson is back in a return to form. This album's superiority to the last has a lot to do with the return of long time bandmate Twiggy who had split ways with Manson back in 2002, and the addition of former Nine Inch Nails member/Tweaker frontman Chris Vrenna. The result is, for the most part, awesome.

The album starts things off with "Devour" which instrumentally has that modern nod to post-punk kind of sound a lot of bands have been doing lately i.e. She Wants Revenge, White Lies, etc; and then kicks things off into an upbeat climax.

The rest of the album picks up in momentum and/or quality from there, with the occasional mediocre departure infrequently scattered about. But even the "meh" moments are worth enduring because a lot of, if not all the songs, have some kind of instrumental incentive whether it be the bluesy lead guitar solos in the second half of "Unkillable Monster" or Chris Vrenna's awesome soundscapes in "15."

This isn't the heaviest album he's done, but it definitely has its moments (i.e. the squealing noisy leads emerging behind the stomping rhythm assaults in "Pretty As a Swastika"), and the chiller songs such as "Four Rusted Horses," "Running to the Edge of the World," and "Unkillable Monster" etc; are reminiscent of the mellower songs on Antichrist Superstar, Mechanical Animals, and Holywood.

Anyone skeptical of whether or not Manson would ever put out another good album can be assured that buying this album will be a musical investment well spent!