Strange Little Birds
| Garbage
Strange Little Birds
Strange Little Birds is the sixth studio album by American rock band Garbage. It was released on June 10, 2016, through the band's own record label, Stunvolume. It is their second independent album release, and follows 2012's Not Your Kind of People. The album's press release describes Strange Little Birds as "a sweeping, cinematic record of a unified mood: darkness". -WIkipedia
Critic Reviews
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Spin
It’s a more conservative album, too, than Bleed Like Me, which found the band looking forward, off a cliff. But 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.
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Pitchfork
With their post-return jitters under control, Garbage have solidified that return with Strange Little Birds, their darkest, most intimate LP and the band’s strongest effort in 15 years.
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COS
Shirley Manson and co. continue to stick to their guns and deliver classic '90s alt rock.
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Rolling Stone
Nineties alt-rock icons go heavy on the dark stuff, and it’s great.
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The NY Times
“Strange Little Birds” is the band’s second album since 2012 — and admirably, it has stuck by its vision.
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The Current
Shirley Manson, Butch Vig, Duke Erikson and Steve Marker continue to create together and to deliver to their fans, and in this case, the new album Strange Little Birds does exactly that.
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AV Club
That willingness to be uncomfortable and look beneath the surface makes Strange Little Birds a rousing success.
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Slant Magazine
trange Little Birds emerges as the band’s most compelling, adventurous album in 15 years.
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The Guardian
A sluggish comeback.
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Bloody Disgusting
Garbage have created an album that I will absolutely be returning to consistently.
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PopMatters
Strange Little Birds is far better than it has any right to be. In other words, few bands ever deliver such a steady and satisfying record this far into their career. For many artists, creativity and enthusiasm deplete as the years amass, but Garbage proves to be an exception here.
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All Music
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.
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Drowned in Sound
If only the album had been made up of songs where they’d allowed the songs to be low key and interesting, it could’ve been really good.
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Medium
instead of pushing studio-trickery over tunes, as they have been want to do on the past, they produce a strong and consistent set of songs which recall their heyday, but also push the group forward into new territory.
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Echoes and Dust
For those previously unconvinced by Garbage’s almost uncategorisable music, Strange Little Birds may just sway their opinions: this is the sound of a band newly at peace with itself, born of a new confidence and content to be themselves.
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Smells Like Infinite Sadness
After two scattershot albums, Strange Little Birds is a striking return to form. Garbage refuse to bow to current trends, content to redefine their signature sound in new and interesting shapes. And as their latest proves, it remains a formula with endless possibilities.
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Vulture Hound
Strange Little Birds is effortlessly poetic, creativity in its rawest form.
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American Songwriter
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.
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Major HiFi
If you have ten bucks and a half-decent internet connection, what the hell, just go buy the damn thing. It’s that good. It’s great. It’s pure Garbage.
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Alternative Nation
With Strange Little Birds, Garbage has tapped into that early magic that catapulted them to worldwide fame in the mid 90’s, and along with Deftones Gore, it seems we are off to a great start in 2016 with some stellar alternative rock albums.
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xsnoize
“Strange Little Birds” is a very effective way to introduce younger listeners to the band and provides a gateway to their other stellar releases. Once again “Strange Little Birds” reinforces the fact that listeners are always secure in Garbage’s brilliant musical hands.
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Las Vegas Weekly
Strange Little Birds isn’t quite as refreshing; now it’s the sound of a veteran band churning out more of the same, although that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
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Irish Times
If the sixth Garbage album sounds like their debut’s cryogenically frozen twin it’s more to do with the fact that the four-piece emerged fully formed and battle-hardened in the early 1990s than any enduring stasis.
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Sputnik Music
Garbage scramble for something different, but the ideas die on the vine.
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Buzznet
For an album that was less fussed over – lyrically and sonically – it’s their most cohesive yet, making Strange Little Birds the album Garbage fans have been waiting on.
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Vanyaland
Strange Little Birds, plausibly their greatest accomplishment since the human race’s pre-Biebs era.
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The Line of Best Fit
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.
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Spectrum Culture
Twenty years after its prime, Garbage is back with Strange Little Birds, an album with many of the same merits that defined its heyday, but not nearly as compelling.
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Cryptic Rock
Strange Little Birds captures the emotions of sadness and darkness with the use of enhanced cinematic and atmospheric landscapes. These emotive themes brilliantly add tragic disturbances that many have experienced after a failed relationship, mistake, or the general anxiety and fear of loss that many experience.
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Irish Examiner
It can seem fashionable nowadays to disparage artists for going back to they original sound. Yet Garbage have made exactly the right move in reverting to first principles and, along the way, assembled their most truly essential collection since their debut.
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Under the Radar
while there are no Strange Little Birds songs to be despised or thrown in the trash, they just can't be guaranteed to make a nest in you anytime soon.
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Music Feeds
This is a truly inspiring return from one of the world’s most important creative forces and the fact that they’ve pulled it off so deep in their career, when so many a re comfortable with sitting back on their laurels, is nothing short of astonishing. If it’s not fighting at the top of album of the year contender boards I’ll be furious.
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No Ripcord
While Garbage still sound hungry and willing to try something new, too many songs don't hold up to their reputation. There's plenty of material worth diving into on this album, but the results could have been much, much stronger.
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MusicOMH
It’s the truest mission statement yet from a band determined to charge head-on into despair, still strange and doomed and darkly lovely – and coming to terms with it.
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Rock Cellar Magazine
it’s a fine addition to their verastile catalog of music.
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Howl and Echoes
Strange Little Birds proves that three years is a small price to pay for an excellent Garbage album.
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The National
Strange Little Birds sounds in many ways like a natural successor to Version 2.0, both musically and in terms of its recurring lyrical themes of doomed love, loneliness and isolation.
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Relix
At moments in their several decade-long history, Garbage have taken on the sound of the times, embodying the grunge of the ‘90s or the rock sheen of the ‘00s. But Strange Little Birds, the band’s sixth album since their 1995 self-titled debut, encapsulates some of those part elements in a way that feels more timeless.
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Louder Sound
Back to the sumptuous sex dungeon with Mistress Manson.
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Nerdist
Garbage's Strange Little Birds is a glorious new beginning.
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Bearded Gentlemen Music
We all want to re-live our glory days in some capacity, but a new album should never make the listener want to listen to something else, even if it’s from the same band. Maybe somethings are best left in 1998?
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The Fire Note
Strange Little Birds is, first and foremost, a fine modern pop record.
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Vada Magazine
Garbage are, of course, older, and though they may sound very much like their best selves again on Strange Little Birds, there are also some tiny, positive shifts made within their beautiful, bruised psyche.
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Clash Magazine
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.
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Hot Press
Strange Little Birds is as retro as a Ramones t-shirt, but the writing is so strong it hardly matters. Here’s a release that takes flight from the start and soars higher with every passing moment.
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Under the Gun
Strange Little Birds is garbage that's worth picking up.
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