Album Review: Garbage - Strange Little Birds

Even though it's taken over two years to gestate, Garbage manage to make Strange Little Birds sound a bit unstudied, with a lot of the near-industrial scuffed sheen of their early records to it.

The gentlemen producer/musicians of the combo make the racket necessary to match Shirley Manson's typically aggressive vulnerability — she who still manages to coo, ache and threaten often simultaneously. Songs like Empty and Magnetized have the familiar widescreen sweep and muscle to them, but there is variety, like the altogether oppressively moodier Even Though Our Love Is Doomed. Their electronic element is still present, but knows its place among guitars, drums and so-human woman at the front.