A Older Brian Warner Makes for a New Marilyn Manson
As an old school melomaniac, I welcome the return of Marilyn Manson.
I will admit though that I went through a bit of a dry spell with him after ‘Eat Me, Drink Me’ (2007) when I was diving deep into the indie rock music scene.
It wasn’t until ‘We Are Chaos’ (2020) that I started catching up and obsessing over his work all over again, establishing new favorites over a 13-year window and then, suddenly, the bottom fell out with accusations of sexual assault and then the Loma Vista label dropped him immediately.
This isn’t the first time that Marilyn Manson and a label hadn’t seen eye-to-eye, but this time, with cancel culture surging, and Trent Reznor taking another swing at him, I thought that Marilyn Manson might be been done for, for sure.
My new obsession with the albums that I missed out on never took to the news-cycled updates about the those allegations.
To compare, even the fanatical news cycle of Johnny Depp (a close friend of Brian Warner) vs Amber Heard never interested me because I’ve got better things to do and that’s not my bag, baby.
But, it definitely piqued my interest when I heard there was a new tour happening, but what for?
This tour seemed a little bigger than it needed to be and I had yet to hear anything about a new album.
Sure, there were hints in May of 2023 but he’s released singles before.
And then, on the first date of the tour… BOOM; Manson drops a music video for “As Sick As The Secrets Within”.
Marilyn Manson, ‘One Assassination Under God – Chapter 1’ Review
For a man with no reflection, it took breaking a mirror to find it.
The music video for “As Sick as the Secrets Within” rattled me.
Marilyn Manson looked exactly as he did in the mid ’90s, tapping into the visual likeness of those Floria Sigismondi music videos that complimented their sound.
The synths, the darkness, the creepiness was back.
Other videos would follow, which hinted at at an album coming soon.
“Raise the Red Flag”, while not as visually striking as the first in this series of releases, shows off Marilyn Manson’s new band, “Sacrilegious” and “One Assassination Under God” would continue to single out Manson as the point of focus but as music videos, they are pretty standard.
In watching some of the live footage from this tour I see that Manson is carrying himself differently where his bandmates no longer suffer injuries and bruises he used to inflict on his former members.
In fact, you can even see him embracing the more intimate tradition of introducing them individually to the audience.
It’s clear at this point that Marilyn Manson has mellowed out quite a bit at the age of 55, perhaps even beaten down from the results he’s suffered from the decades of controversies he’s created.
As for the new album which dropped yesterday, my initial reaction as a lot to do with how I see this rock music icon today.
“No Funeral Without Applause” immediately reminds me a bit of “Tourniquet” which was one of my favorite tracks from ‘Antichrist Superstar’ (1996) back in the day.
A few albums later, going back to hear it, I remember feeling that it was actually subpar, mostly because the vocal melody never changes when she’s not spookily whispering the chorus.
Given the distance of time having written so much music for decades, and with co-writing with composer Tyler Bates, “No Funeral Without Applause” is a much better version of what’s been tried before.
Lyric-wise, it’s strong but it also falls into what Marilyn Manson has also been good at, where his lyrics are too clever for their own good.
When it comes to “Nod if You Understand”, he hits the mark with “Who would want to wake up if this is their world” but also lyrically, is more of the same that we come to expect from a MM song.
“As Sick As The Secrets Within” is already a stand out with me.
As the first sign of his return, appropriately, having survived cancel culture — perhaps leveraged with successful attempts at sobriety; this song is one of several from the album that make an impact because the song is clearly about him being sober.
You could go back to some of those videos from ‘The Pale Emperor’ era to see that he wasn’t looking too good and it was potentially hinting at a more self-destructive demeanor.
This was was much clearer to me during an episode of Marc Maron’s WTF podcast that wasn’t doing so great, getting drunk and spinning out towards the end of the interview.
“Death Is Not A Costume” is another highlight as it redirects the album away from the mundanity of “Sacrilegious”, which is better than “Nod If You Understand” but the kind of low-end filler we’ve heard Manson use before which is a bit disappointing for me as I expect more from him 12-albums in.
I mean, it’s the kind of filler that goes back to the early days of his discography which I’ve long outgrown.
“Meet Me In Purgatory” also stands out as he addresses the state of uncertainty he was in when many abandoned him during his last controversy.
I remember thinking at the time that his career was over because, who would be inspired to create something else after such a fall from grace?
The main take away from ‘One Assassination Under God – Chapter 1’ is clearly the current state that he’s in, which, because of the drastic changes in his life, hits different but not so much so that it strays from the familiarity of what we’ve come to expect from Marilyn Manson.
‘One Assassination Under God – Chapter 1’ feels a bit like an extension of ‘Holywood’ (2000) which brilliantly touched on topical issues of the time, wrapped together autobiographical angle we got from the acclaimed ‘Pale Emperor’, and ‘Heaven Upside Down’ albums.
Time will tell what this album is when we see the bigger picture given that this is a first chapter to a potentially bigger work.
Of course, there have been plenty of times when releases marked as a part 1 or 2 of something continues or completes for whatever reason.
At an initial listen, not the best album from his catalog as it’s the result of the current climate and time in his life and not what I expected, however, in my catch-up sessions, I find that this is a good album to shuffle with his other releases. Preferably, with the exception of ‘Holywood’, the albums that isolate him away from a collaborative band writing effort.
