ALBUM REVIEWS
“We’re looking for shards of life and humanity,” Garbage‘s Shirley Manson told us last spring, teasing the follow-up to the critically acclaimed 2021 album ‘No Gods No Masters’. A year on, the finished product is here in the form ‘Let All That We Imagine Be The Light’ – and it’s fair to say that the frontwoman is true to her word.
It arrives at a vital moment for Garbage. In the time since their last release, the singer has undergone surgery after an on-stage incident, confronted sexist scrutiny from the media, and been part of a number of musicians standing up against a startling rise in bigoted rhetoric from political leaders. With such challenges looming, things could have easily turned bleak on album eight. Instead, though, the band have channelled that frustration into something that seeks out hope from the rubble.
Take opener ‘There’s No Future In Optimism’. Despite its sombre title, it serves as an uplifting introduction to the record. Powerful lyrics flip cynicism on its head (“There is no future that can’t be designed / With imagination and a beautiful mind”), and its fusion of electronica, rock and alt-pop are guaranteed to glow on the live stage.
It’s once we reach the triple threat of ‘Have We Met (The Void)’, ‘Sisyphus’ and ‘Radical’, however, that ‘Let All That We Imagine…’ comes into full force. While the trilogy’s lyrics deliver gentle reminders that struggles breed strength, it’s the sonic landscapes that take the album to new heights. Combining analogue synths, gut-punch guitar riffs and intriguing dynamics, the four create something both raw and intimate, yet densely layered and cinematic. Manson’s vocals are some of her strongest yet, and intricate nuances captured by Butch Vig, Duke Erikson and Steve Marker reflect the synergy that comes from years of collaboration.
While the album leans into softer themes of love and optimism, that isn’t to say that Garbage have cast aside their intensity. In fact, with album eight, the band push back against the tired cliché that rock artists mellow with age. Yes, ‘Let All That We Imagine…’ may not be completely engulfed with white-hot rage, but in the moments where that anger does come through, it blazes. Just look at the unfiltered response to misogyny in ‘Chinese Fire Horse’ (“I’ve still got the power in my brain and my body / I’ll take no shit from you”), or the refusal to overlook intolerance in ‘Get Out My Face AKA Bad Kitty’. Garbage’s recognition of prejudice is clearer than ever, and their tolerance for bullshit is at an all time low.
If there is one thing Garbage have taken from the time since their last LP, it’s that while the world can often feel like a dark place, there is a sense of empowerment that can be reached by letting in the light. Over three decades after they formed, we are now seeing the band like never before. Not only are they showcasing some of their most intriguing and impactful material, but they’re also paving the way into a hopeful new chapter.
ALBUM REVIEWS
The leather jackets and skinny jeans worn by Noah Dillon and Chandler Ransom Lucy have become something of a signature, and the pair have hovered around the edges of the pop worlds in New York and Los Angeles for quite some time. First highlighted by NME during the Dimes Square resurgence in 2023, The Hellp have gradually stepped away from their earlier indie-sleaze imitation and leaned into something far more thoughtful. Their wild, neon-tinged party vibe has been traded for a more cinematic electronic approach that still holds onto a confident, self-aware attitude.
Dillon and Lucy started releasing music as The Hellp in 2016, with early mixtapes rooted in the chaotic nights and carefree behaviour once associated with NYC’s indie-sleaze staples like LCD Soundsystem and Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Over time, though, they’ve earned a steadily growing respect from critics. That rise has come through both their underground gigs, which have included a show at London’s Corsica Studios with Fakemink as support, and through Dillon’s expanding visual work that recently reached Rosalía’s ‘LUX’ album and a pair of music videos for 2hollis.
As ‘Riviera’ approached release, the duo shared: “We knew our next project would need to be a bit more mature… we refuse to become stagnant. ‘Riviera’ is more solemn, restrained and impassioned than anything we’ve done before.” The finished album feels like Dillon and Lucy carefully balancing identity and openness, theatricality and direct emotion.
The lead release, ‘Country Road’, carries a late-night heaviness, the kind of confession you would quietly tell a friend in a club’s smoking area. Its lonely tone is surrounded by glitching electronics and a rising bridge that points to the exhaustion that follows endless nights out. Tracks like ‘New Wave America’ and ‘Cortt’ deepen what the duo mention in their liner notes as a “desperate story of the disparate Americana.” Both pieces broaden the album’s emotional landscape and offer clear-eyed commentary on reluctantly stepping into adulthood.
When ‘Riviera’ shifts into ‘Doppler’, the tone brightens for a moment as hopeful synths lift Dillon’s words about yearning and heartbreak into an emotional peak. And in the final moments of the record, The Hellp land on something instantly familiar to anyone who has drifted away from the club scene. The Kavinsky-like opening of ‘Here I Am’ nods to their early inspirations, while the closing track ‘Live Forever’ arrives with a slow, grounded maturity, built around Dillon repeating the line: “I don’t want to live forever.”
‘Riviera’ holds far less disorder than The Hellp’s earlier releases. This turn inward marks an important risk for a duo once fuelled by the momentum of a downtown New York comeback. By easing off the frenzy, The Hellp have stepped out of the party’s lingering haze and returned with a style that feels more refined and more aware of itself than anything they have created before.
