Garbage's Shirley Manson Still Doesn't Give A Hatful Of Fucks What You Think

There’s probably no exact formula to work out when hopeful anticipation becomes “Aww, bugger it, I really can’t be bothered anymore”.  I think it reached the latter point with the endless hints, baits, teasers and red herrings about the possible return of The Avalanches in about 2011. So, there might be new material from them around the end of the week. Good luck with that. Because one of the flip sides of that decade-and-a-half of suspense is that no song from them is going to measure up to the legend. So, I’ll be here with my remixes of Frontier Psychiatrist and Since I Left You, and wait for the saturation airplay of it on Rage. If it happens.

Conversely, a couple of years between each new Bob Evans outing doesn’t seem that oppressive. Bob’s still around, or is even again being “that bloke in Jebediah…” in the interim. To announce his return in this guise, you get the handy bonus of the old-school Double-A side single, even with a video of the medley. Matterfact/Happy Tears (Capitol) is gentler pop music, deliberately more inward than his previous bigger and brighter Familiar Stranger of 2013. To further contradict that slightly, Bob’s voice is maybe becoming more blurred with Kevin’s adenoidal tones. And if you want to confuse things even further, the latter of the two track seems to have a touch of Crowded House melodicism to it. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. 

It also took Philadelphia Grand Jury a couple of years to get their act back together. Not the least from having broke up the band, and having a portion of it move to Berlin. Those differences settled an album was delivered, and Summer of Doom being rather damn good - despite the apparent gloom of the title. A second single from said album was called for, Time With You (Normal People Making Hits) selected. But the band weren’t quite happy with it, the way it were. So, finding themselves in the odd situation of being in the same room in the same hemisphere, they did what came naturally – and just re-recorded the whole damn song. This makes it seem a little punchier and more personal, but still has all of their yelly charm, and gets it all done in two-and-a-bit minutes. Good work that. 

There are names that still retain an amount of commercial cachet in this country, no matter how long between releases. This is an even more idiosyncratic case as Daniel Johns last record under his own name was greeted with double-mad-with-cheese enthusiasm, and then didn’t really do all that much. But there’s been a couple of featured appearances of his distinctive tones on some other people’s records lately, the latest of these being Slumberjack’s Open Fire (Mad Decent). Here’s some terms to help with the keyword search: Perth, electronica, gaming, dystopia, Japanese schoolgirls. Yeah, that about covers it.

And sometimes, a totally distinctive voice can be either a huge plus, or appalling millstone. Kathleen Hanna’s often urgent yelp is such an instrument. With the credentials and credibility of getting that ‘original riot grrl’ description invariably after her name, there can still be mis-steps. I was confronted with her doing a kinda-acoustic cover of Springsteen’s surprisingly-bleak-when-you-listen-to-it Dancing In The Dark for some indie film soundtrack a couple of weeks back. It was pretty horrific, and not in a good way. So, a new song under her The Julie Ruin band guise turning up didn’t really inspire great hopes. But I’m Done (Hardly Art/Inertia) is more comfortably uncomfortable. Ye olde punk rock stylee, with just a touch of melodicism, and Hanna’s cat-strangling angst far more at one with the music. 

And if Hanna’s music has a spirit of place – that being Pacific North-West USA, circa 1996 – sometimes it doesn’t have to. Armidale, NSW is just up the road from Tamworth, but Dustin Tebbutt makes a rich modern pop that somehow doesn’t end up icky as songs about finding new love after the messy break-up you documented on your last record might. First Light (Eleven) is music designer made for FM playlists dealing with the mainstream of the alternative, or possible to soundtrack a commercial for good quality chocolate. 

Looking closer into Cass McCombs Opposite House (Anti) things are not quite as they might have first appeared. It’s almost soft-rock on first listen, with Angel Olsen’s counterpoint vocals added to the romantic tone. But then you hear him wandering through the various rooms, chatting quietly about the fridge. And the snakes. Yeah, the snakes. It’s uncomfortable, yet still beckons you. Deciding if you’ll sit on the sofa to give him a hug to calm him down, or whether you should just bolt for the door before things get a bit Stephen King is entirely up to you. It’s quite clever, but not just for its own sake.

Ah, that marvellous point where an artist doesn’t give a hatful of fucks what you or anyone else thinks. It’s long been part of Shirley Manson’s way of coping. Thing is, Garbage still make pop music utterly of the moment. The middle-aged blokes of the band lock in and make Empty (Stun Volume) a typically seamless construction of wood, wire, and steel as you’d expect from producers whose names have been on some the greatest records of the last 30-odd years. And then there’s Shirley. Allowing for fears of being labelled ageist or sexist, even as she closes on 50 she’d still chew up any pretenders - and then explain how she did it very clearly on various social media platforms. She remains the absolute business.

Just on her voice alone, Ngaiire has deserved to become something important. House On A Rock (Maximilian Brown) gets that odd ‘future soul’ tag - whatever that means - but just listen as she soars through it as the music crashes over you, ebbs away, and then comes again stronger. This is hopefully another step for the wider world to realise just how terrific she is. Get on.