In with the Trash

By CHRISTOPHER JOHN FARLEY

One of the many charms of the electro-rock band Garbage is the group's expectations-lowering name. After all, if you buy a ticket to a movie called Big-Budget Bomb or vote for, say, a gubernatorial candidate named Mr. Lecherous Promise-Breaker, you've got no one to blame but yourself if things turn out bad.

Happily, Garbage's sophomore album, Version 2.0 (Almo Sounds) doesn't live up--or down--to the band's name. The quartet, based in Madison, Wis., and consisting of singer Shirley Manson (originally from Edinburgh, Scotland), guitarists Steve Marker and Duke Erikson, and drummer Butch Vig (who produced Nirvana's album Nevermind), had never played outside the studio before recording their debut album, Garbage, in 1995. Their inexperience showed: while the album had its moments, it often felt indecisive and inorganic. In the past three years, Garbage has had a chance to tour, and now it sounds more like a band instead of a science-class lab experiment.

Vig, Marker and Erikson had played together and separately in a number of small, Wisconsin-area bands. One night they saw Manson on MTV fronting another band, called Angelfish. They tracked her down, asked her to join their nascent group, and Garbage was launched. "Madison is isolated, so we're kind of removed from the music business or the distractions you may have in New York, Los Angeles, London or Paris," says Vig. "It's a great city, but there's not much to do, so everyone kind of leaves us to our own devices."

Version 2.0 boasts a unique, expansive sound that fills the speakers and the ears. The songs are hormonal yet thoughtful, mostly morose but always energetically so. Dreamy, cooing verses give way to booming choruses driven by electronic percussion. On one of the album's best songs, the jittery, upbeat Special, Manson seems to channel the spirit of Pretenders' lead singer Chrissie Hynde: "You were the talk of the town," Manson sings in the track's closing moments, a reference to one of the Pretenders' hits. Indeed, Manson called Hynde up to ask her permission for the vocal homage. Says Manson: "A fax came through the machine saying, 'I, Chrissie Hynde, do solemnly swear that the rock band Garbage can sample my sound, my voice or indeed my very a__.'" When an established rocker is willing to give so generously to a new band, it's an indication of the group's promise.

Manson is another one of Garbage's central charms. She has a warm, sensuous voice and a charismatic personality that comes through in her songs: angry but needy, wounded but enduring, a little jaded but somehow guileless. She's clearly a rock star in the making.

Version 2.0 is not without faults: some of the melodies are weak, and the production is, at times, overbearing. Still, the band is headed in the right direction. "We're very aware of how treacherous the music industry is, particularly nowadays," says Manson. "The industry doesn't want to encourage fan loyalty over the long term, they just want a quick hit." That isn't always the rule, of course: the Dave Matthews Band's uneven new CD, Before These Crowded Streets, just debuted atop the Billboard charts, helped by a loyal fan following established through constant, Grateful Dead-like touring. It would be fascinating to see Garbage also buck the trend toward planned pop obsolescence and develop some of their intriguing, still coalescing, musical ideas.

--By Christopher John Farley