Eat Me, Drink Me

Though Marilyn Manson lives to shock people with his outrageous behavior, his music is surprisingly conventional. Anyone acquainted with the works of David Bowie, Alice Cooper and the decades of punk and industrial music that followed should have no problem acclimating to Manson’s murky hard rock stew. With his band now in the past, Manson teams with bassist Tim Skold in a home recording studio to make what on the surface seems to be his most intimate album to date. At times, the sound still expands to grand dimensions but mostly Manson and Skold create thick, dense guitar patches that feel as if the world is closing in on them. “If I Was Your Vampire” kicks things off with a slow, creepy riff that sounds as if Manson is being physically restrained from tearing the roof off.  Elsewhere, he employs a stack of wah-wah guitar (“They Said That Hell’s Not Hot”) and burbling synths to support his ragged croak of a voice. The days of cataclysmic destruction may be past — this is not Mechanical Animals — but the dawning of a new hard rock day has Manson feeling pretty apprehensive. And that’s a good thing for listeners hooked on his doomsday scenarios.