WE ARE CHAOS

AlbumSep 11 / 202010 songs, 42m 31s
Alternative Rock Glam Rock
Popular Highly Rated

There’s nothing quite like a global pandemic to make a Marilyn Manson album feel, well, nice. Released during a year where practically everything feels upsetting and uncomfortable, it’s oddly cathartic to listen to an artist who once reveled in exactly those things. While the soaring title track sing-along may have been written in 2018, it feels like something of a 2020 anthem: “We are sick, fucked up and complicated/We are chaos, we can’t be cured.” *WE ARE CHAOS* was produced in collaboration with outlaw country artist Shooter Jennings, his influence immediate, obvious, and exciting. The album carries all the musical hallmarks of Manson’s twisted persona, forged over 25-plus years—huge riffs, heavily distorted vocals, industrial sound effects—and the controversial rocker’s long-favored themes of death, discord, Satan, etc. However, it’s all balanced out by tender acoustic guitars (“BROKEN NEEDLE”), glammy melodies (“DON’T CHASE THE DEAD”), and even the odd positive affirmation (“Don’t try changing someone else, you’ll just end up changing yourself,” he sings on the Brian Jonestown Massacre-goes-darkwave highlight “KEEP MY HEAD TOGETHER”). The album’s not without pounding drums and epic howls (particularly the one towards the end of “PAINT YOU WITH MY LOVE”) that’d give *Mechanical Animals*-era Manson a run for his money, but it’s the other, more surprising moments that stand out the most. It’s that perfect storm of old meets new, and diabolical meets rather lovely, that makes *WE ARE CHAOS* such an enjoyable ride amidst a definitively unenjoyable year.

You want a freakshow? Turn on the news. The shock-rocker swaps pantomime for vulnerability on his best album since 2000's seminal 'Holy Wood'

4 / 5

Given the state of the world at the moment, it feels as good a time as any to release the tension by turning the speakers up to 11

Extending a late-era artistic renaissance with his 11th album We Are Chaos, Marilyn Manson goes three-for-three with his Loma Vista output, delivering yet another taut set of catchy earworms that retains enough of his peak-era trademarks while continuing his unexpected late-stage evolution.

7 / 10

It's hard for an artist like Marilyn Manson to not been considered a has-been. The Antichrist Superstar made his name in the '90s as a shock...

7 / 10

"We are sick, f*cked up and complicated", snarls Marilyn Manson over the title track of his 11th studio album, his first since 2017’s

8 / 10

Pop culture icon MARILYN MANSON wrote his eleventh studio album prior to the onset of the pandemic. Yet the 10 songs on-hand reflect the madness and uncertainty that captures the essence of this turbulent era. With "We Are Chaos", the shock rocker rides along the trajectory that his musical career h...

Album Reviews: Marilyn Manson - We Are Chaos

4.7 / 5

Marilyn Manson - We Are Chaos review: Are you alright? 'Cause I'm not okay.

The Antichrist Superstar softens up. Review by Russ Coffey