Strange Little Birds

While this is unlikely to achieve the same status [as their debut], it proves that these veterans are definitely not yet ready for the scrapheap.

It's their best album in nearly 20 years. [Aug 2016, p.112]

It successfully excavates old and gorgeous Garbage: digs it up, dusts it off, reassembles it, and lovingly crafts replacements, piece by vivid piece, for the strange little sounds that have rotted away.

Though the LP isn’t as varied or experimental as its predecessor, 2012’s Not Your Kind of People, it is more cohesive and alluring, resulting in a superior collection overall and a strong addition to the Garbage catalog.

Their sixth album finds them stepping into a world where bands like PVRIS have started to occupy a similar space to Shirley Manson and co. It's only made Garbage themselves better. [11 Jun 2016, p.53]

Strange Little Birds is a record that’s human to its very core, revelling in flaws and failures, but never losing hope. And in that way, it’s the perfect mirror for its creators’ 22-year career.

The impressive thing about Strange Little Birds is how it feels simultaneously familiar and fresh, a record that echoes the past without being trapped by it.

Aside from those gratifying but superfluous detours into the well-trodden, though, Strange Little Birds emerges as the band's most compelling, adventurous album in 15 years.

Garbage haven't released an album this immediate, melodically strong and thematically interesting since their self-titled 1995 debut. [Jul 2016, p.91]

While Strange Little Birds might not be Garbage’s most immediate release, lyrically it’s certainly their bravest and 20 years into their career, it feels like they’ve entered a new era.

“Teaching Little Fingers To Play” is a bit hokey and clichéd. But on “If I Lost You,” the vibe connects massively: Serene loops and swift beats recall vintage Portishead, while Manson’s lyrical meditation on insecurity is stark, vulnerable and remarkably honest. [No. 132, p.53]

There are a few moments that feel oddly dated or too by-the-numbers, but otherwise, this is an engaging return from the gothic dance-rock four-piece.

The left-field pop of Nineties hits like "#1 Crush" has been pulled back, but that's fine. What's left is an august, hardboiled vitality.

Despite these superficial similarities [to their 1995 debut album], repeat spins of Strange Little Birds ultimately belie an older, wiser reincarnation of that youthful rage, not just a cheap retrospective.

Re-examining its signature brat rock through an industrial prism, Garbage forges something more haunting and honest.

Even though structurally Strange Little Birds evokes the band’s early work, it’s clear there’s mellowness afoot.

Existing fans will appreciate the uptick in sheer moodiness and offbeat experimental tendencies matched with fluid, often hypnotic melodies the quartet displays on the majority of Strange Little Birds. Newcomers to the Garbage experience can start here and work themselves backwards through an impressively edgy catalog brimming with more of the same.