The Golden Age of Grotesque

Call Marilyn Manson's fifth studio album vaudevillian industrial rock; though there's no shortage of his band’s usual jagged electro-metal clashes, as highlighted by the stinging doomsday techno of "(s)AINT" and the steel-toed stomp "Ka-Boom Ka-Boom," The Golden Age of Grotesque is suffused with a carnivalesque, theatrical flair. The title track is a waltzing cabaret with pirouetting piano and society-condemning lyrics, while "mOBSCENE" skitters atop devilish cheerleader chants. Manson’s lyrics rail against fame-seekers and social climbers in classically melodramatic fashion, deploying tongue-twisting wordplay with seething ire.