Oh my good god everything about his vocals and lyrics on Tattooed In Reverse make me embarrassed to be hearing any of it. Just give me that Uzi album at this point, it can't be worse or more repetitive than this. I'm not going to act like The Pale Emperor was totally fresh territory or anything, but it felt focused and more open and lyrically pointed toward himself in a way that showed some self-awareness and willingness to try and move forward creatively, but this is like a nosedive back into every cliche, every cringe-inducing dated cool-at-the-time-and-now-only-in-nostalgia-style line of his but with none of the nostalgia attached.
First time I won't bother buying an album of his whatsoever. The instrumentals are a lot like Bates' work on John Wick so if I get an itch for the sound of this, I'll just go to that. Knowing the amount of people that had to look at this guy in the studio, look over the lyrics, listen to him as he sang, choose from the best performances, mix it all together, and at no point stop and go "Hey, maybe this isn't great" is stunning. I don't know what's crazier to imagine -- that people didn't bother to say anything at all and just smiled and nodded their way through it or that people did, in fact, step in, guide him away from his worst ideas and this is somehow the best that he could do.
People said Saturnalia is Bela Lugosi's Dead but oh my fuck it actually is just that song for entire chunks, if it was a straightforward cover and billed as such I wouldn't even mind but wow, that's ... way more than similar. It also happens to be one of the most tolerable songs, almost entirely because it's a semi-cover of a better one and Manson's vocals aren't "ultra edgy so super scary for your conservative parents" the whole time. Other than the title I honestly can't remember a single line from it and on this album, the lyrics not sticking out is actually a good thing.
@
tony.parente wasn't kidding about Jesus Crisis (somebody else can type it the right way, fuck it) -- wowza. Let's not even acknowledge that one.
Blood Honey is one of the better things here, mostly because it isn't obsessed with trying to make some vague and vapid statement about ... well, whatever the fuck it is Manson is rambling about on the rest of the album in regards to religion. That doesn't mean it isn't terrible, but at least it's a break from the same cliches. It feels more like the Born Villain end of the spectrum, which is to say extremely boring and overall forgettable. The penchant for repeating himself that's shown in the last few albums has officially worn thin -- when all of your lyrics are this bad, to repeat them over and over again aren't helping at all.
That repetition also doesn't help when the music isn't exactly inventive and in turn it gets very monotonous very quickly -- it's 47 minutes but still feels too long. The last track just refuses to fucking end. The dude is completely out of ideas. There's zero reason to keep the lights on for this band anymore besides the paycheck that they can milk out of it, and I'm amazed there's even much of one left to milk.