Bleed Like Me
| Garbage
Bleed Like Me
Bleed Like Me is the fourth studio album by American rock band Garbage. It was released on April 11, 2005, by Geffen Records. For this album, the band chose a straight rock sound reminiscent of their live performances instead of the electronica that permeated their previous album Beautiful Garbage (2001). The first recording sessions took place in March 2003, but were mostly unproductive due to passive aggression between band members and a general lack of direction. As they struggled to record the album, Garbage quietly split for four months starting in October 2003. They reunited under producer John King in Los Angeles and, following a guest appearance by Dave Grohl on "Bad Boyfriend", they found a renewed focus on production. Garbage recruited drummer Matt Walker and bassist Justin Meldal-Johnsen for new recording sessions and completed the album by late 2004. -Wikipedia
Critic Reviews
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Pitchfork
After the critical and commercial disappointment of the adventurous Beautiful Garbage, Shirley Manson and co. return to their more basic, early template.
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Slant Magazine
If Version 2.0 was techno-pop perfection posing as rock, Bleed Like Me is its noisy, long-haired cousin playing metal riffs in the garage.
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Drowned in Sound
There very well may be a human heart beating at the centre of 'Bleed Like Me', but thanks to the walls of effects and static, it's sometimes impossible to hear it.
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Blinded by Sound
Bleed Like Me is not a masterwork. It is a strong, listenable album created by four veteran artists who understand their art and craft. Garbage may never again reach the heights of their debut but Bleed Like Me is good enough to make fans hope they continue trying.
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Sputnik Music
Bleed Like Me’s tragic shortcoming is that it fails to attract even the anachronistic mid-90s teenager it seems to be tailor-made for. Everything here sounds too contrived, but ill-practiced and unfamiliar at the same time.
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The Guardian
She is equally voyeuristic on Bleed Like Me, coldly observing self-imposed starvation, self-harming and sexual confusion. However, while Manson's changeling vocals are always worth listening to, Garbage's songs often aren't.
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MusicOMH
Bleed Like Me is a winning return to form for the three men and a little lady. It cranks up the volume when it needs to, holds back when it’s prudent to do so and, most importantly, consists of consistently listenable songs.
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PopMatters
Bleed Like Me left me concerned and I wonder how many more times will this collective group of musicians be able to tear out their shattered hearts, put them back together and carry on as though they have learned nothing from their experiences?
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Garbage Disco Box
the first Garbage album that sounds as if Vig, guitarists-keysmen Duke Erikson and Steve Marker, and Scottish vocal fireball Shirley Manson truly know what they’re writing, singing and raging about.
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BBC
Songs are split unevenly between nice-side-of-thrashy synth rock and a couple of chilly slowies.
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All Music
It's an enjoyable record, but it's hard to escape the nagging feeling that Garbage has painted itself into a corner: they haven't found a way to expand their sound, to make it richer or mature -- they can only deliver more of the same. While they may be able to do this well, it is nevertheless more of the same.
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Murky Words
It's a great album, and that's about all there is to it. Is it their best? Nope. Are there some clunkers? Absolutely, but only a few. Personally, of the 11 total tracks on the record I could do without the last three, but they're not terrible - they're just blah.
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Treblezine
I don’t necessarily think that Bleed Like Me is a bad record, just the latest output from a group that has not progressed or evolved as much as it should have in a decade.
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Live Journal
Bleed Like Me is covered in metallic fury. Loud hooks tetering out of control and snappy, resonant drumming channels influence from Lou Reed and David Bowie up to Nine Inch Nails and Marilyn Manson. The hype of a 'darker' album from Garbage is definately spot on, then.
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The Solute
as a whole album, it’s a grim listen. However, it’s never easy to exorcise one’s demons, and for that, I applaud Garbage for doing so.
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Hidden Jams
Bleed Like Me sounds more back to basics and straightforward rock. The band wanted a more primal, guitar-based sound, resulting in an album that is raw and dark, with the kind of buzzing energy found in a live setting.
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Concert Live Wire
Maybe Manson's proclamation best sums up not only this album, but the state of her band as she cries, "No evolution, sometimes it depresses me. The same old same. Oh we keep repeating history." And, considering the original promise of this band, it depresses me too.
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AV Club
So perhaps it should not be terribly surprising that Garbage's latest approaches a kind of shimmering technical perfection, but remains strangely, stubbornly uninvolving.
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Prindle Record Reviews
Yes, Shirley Manson has brought her band back to the studio for another fuzzy effects-processed glimpse into the world of big obvious emotion-manipulating chord sequences geared towards teenagers. Her voice holds up as well as always, but the riffs are so obvious, it's almost like Butch Vig doesn't have any talent.
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RTE
'Bleed Like Me' is too mediocre to admire.
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EW
Some people carp that Garbage’s carefully assembled post-grunge pop-rock is too contrived. We see their point, but that doesn’t make us deaf to the humongous hooks on album No. 4, Bleed Like Me.
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Daily Collegian
Garbage sure hasn't grown up in sound, but that's OK because Bleed Like Me will still shake you from the toenails up and grasp you in its bruising, pulpy, steely embrace.
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Muse
Bleed Like Me is possibly the most challenging and rewarding piece of the band's career.
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The Digital Fix
Fans of their rockier stuff will enjoy this far more than the last album, while everyone else might wonder what the fuss is about.
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