Marilyn Manson Eat Me, Drink Me

If you had told me in 1996 that I'd still be listening to Nine Inch Nails and Marilyn Manson 11 years later, I probably would have thought you'd had one too many swigs out of the Absinthe bottle. Yet former collaborators Trent Reznor and Brian Warner, both with new albums currently on shelves, are still managing to cling to the last vestiges of MTV-generation relevance. Reznor's Year Zero earns points for being both the most ambitious and compulsively listenable of the two records, but Manson's Eat Me, Drink Me is worth more than a couple of spins in its own right. \nEat Me, Drink Me has the dubious distinction of being the only Marilyn Manson album that you could conceivably listen to with your parents, but that's not to say Manson has gone a big rubbery one. Whereas his career so far has been based on shock and awe, Eat Me, Drink Me is an album born of obvious emotional pain, suffering and newfound love. Manson's divorce from burlesque doll Dita Von Teese and subsequent stroke of luck in shacking up with 19-year-old actress Evan Rachel Wood are lyrical fodder for most of the tracks, and Sweden's own Tim Sköld provides some well-produced sonic backdrops -- and even a few effectively cornball guitar solos. \nManson doesn't possess Reznor's mastery for hooks, but he patches together some memorable riffs on "Putting Holes in Happiness" and "Heart-Shaped Glasses." The slow burners work better here than on any previous Manson record, with "Just a Car Crash Away" and "Evidence" coming off more sincere than hokey. \nEven with Manson in full confessional mode here, we still get a few cringe-inducing lines, yet the general feel is that while Reznor is infinitely busy exorcizing his own demons, Manson is more concerned with pleasing the fans that have stuck with him since the days of "Cake and Sodomy." Both intentions are honorable, so I suppose it just depends on your mood.