This isn’t a music blog.  I don’t usually review music.  Yet when it comes to my favourite band of all time … I am willing to make an exception.

Not Your Kind Of People is the long-awaited latest release from the alternative electonic-guitar rock combo that is Garbage, consisting of music producers Butch Vig, Steve Marker, Duke Erikson and singer Shirley Manson.  It has been seven years since their last album Bleed Like Me, and the band chose to take a hiatus due to the pressures of touring, studio interference and general fatigue.   Yet now they are back, and boy, am I glad they chose to return.

I got myself the deluxe version of the CD with four extra tracks, and overall this is a solid, confident and varied listen, consisting of anthemic tunes like ‘Big Bright World’ and ‘I Hate Love’ to more dream-like tracks such as ‘Bright Tonight’ (with more than a hint of Julie Cruise) and the hypnotic title track ‘Not Your Kind Of People’.  Personal faves are the opening, intense ‘Automatic Systematic Habit’ and the hard rocking ‘Battle In Me’ as well as the sultry-sexy Sugar.  Manson is on great form vocally, and the boys have produced a powerful, energized experience choc-full of samples, loops, warped effects and great riffs (especially in current single ‘Blood For Poppies’).  There seems no limit to the imagination in each track, and although I feel a few of the tracks get a trifle carried away – for a band that have done nothing together for years, this could have been an out-dated mess.  Thankfully though, its a solid return, building on the sound I fell in love with all those years ago … as well as throwing in a few surprises.

Welcome back guys, we missed you!

Verdict:  4 /5

Related articles

• Shirley Manson & Butch Vig On Garbage’s Return To Rock (sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com)
• Garbage’s Reunion Rock Record Feels More Like an Anomaly (entertainment.time.com)
• Garbage go back to basics with comeback Not Your Kind of People (theweek.co.uk)