Marilyn Manson ‎– Mechanical Animals CD

Believe it or not, on Mechanical Animals, Manson has ditched doom and gloom for glam and glitz, abandoned his psycho-industrial thrash for ’70s space-rock and turfed his Antichrist Superstar persona for an androgynous, crimson-tressed alien rock star alter-ego straight out of Ziggy Stardust.

Make that Ziggy Angeldust. The plot to this high-concept album, sez Marilyn, is something about Manson … sorry, Omega, being in love with a girl named Coma White, which turns out to be the drug he’s addicted to. Or something like that. Whatever. What Omega really serves as is a fairly obvious metaphor for Manson’s eternal alienation from humanity — aka the Mechanical Animals— as viewed through a pharmacopoeia haze and set to a synthetic glam-rock hook.

Actually, there are several hooks — mostly raided from Bowie’s vault. Some are obvious, like the Fame clone I Don’t Like the Drugs (But the Drugs Like Me) or the Space Oddity-inspired Disassociative and Speed Of Pain. Other touches are more subtle — a ringing, mile-wide Ziggy riff here, a bit of Lodger-era noise there, some R&B backup vocals and Manson’s cadaverously soulful crooning everywhere.

Remarkably, he manages to make it sound fresh. Manson’s ’90s goth-metal and jaded ennui dovetail seamlessly with ’70s ersatz extravagance, yielding his most accessible, musical songs thus far — if you can call a ballad titled Fundamentally Loathsome accessible.

Of course, naysayers will just call Mechanical Animals a Bowie ripoff. Maybe so. But hey, it’s still a better Bowie album than Bowie has made lately.

Label: Nothing Records

Country: Europe

Media Condition: Near Mint (NM or M-)
Sleeve Condition: Very Good Plus (VG+)

Blue Jewel Case, No O-Card. Circular retainers caused some minor indents.