The Satanic posturings of Marilyn Manson have made him a hate figure for the American moral majority who believe that his morbid metal music is partly to blame for American high-school violence. No disputing the man's cultural significance then, but on the evidence of this new album his music is as boringly irrelevant as can be. This is goth music at its most unimaginative, trying desperately to shock with its grandiose statements but ending up as nothing more than a string of out of date cliches couched in teen-rage doggerel. Manson himself comes across as a grotesque pantomime dame - and by playing up to his caricatured image so blatantly, he really has no-one to blame but himself.
