Garbage have announced details of their eighth studio album, Let All That We Imagine Be The Light, out May 30.
Recorded at Red Razor Sounds in Los Angeles, Butch Vig's studio Grunge Is Dead and Shirley Manson's bedroom, the record was produced by the band and longtime engineer Billy Bush. It's the follow-up to 2021's No Gods No Masters.
Manson wrote of the new effort in a release:
Our last album was extremely forthright. Born out of frustration and outrage — it had a kind of scorched earth, pissed off quality to it. With this new record however, I felt a compulsion to reach for a different kind of energy. A more constructive one. I had this vision of us coming up out of the underground with searchlights as we moved towards the future. Searching for life, searching for love, searching for all the good things in the world that seem so thin on the ground right now. That was the over-riding idea during the making of this record for me — that when things feel dark, it's best to try to seek out that which is light, that which feels loving and good. When I was young, I tended towards the destruction of things. Now that I'm older I believe it's vitally important to build and to create things instead. I still entertain very old romantic ideals about community, society and the world. I don't want to walk through the world creating havoc, damaging the land and people. I want to do good. I want to do no harm.
Vig added, "We used a lot of analogue synths and sound design on the album, as they seemed to fit the dystopian vibes we were all experiencing. We started recording the album with a clean slate, although given what's happening in the US and the rest of the world, it's inevitable that the madness starts to infiltrate the songs. But we definitely wanted the record to have some hope, some light, to convey the feeling that people have the power."
Check out the tracklist below, and stay tuned for new music ahead of the album's May release.
Let All That We Imagine Be the Light:
1. There's No Future in Optimism
2. Chinese Fire Horse
3. Hold
4. Have We Met (The Void)
5. Sisyphus
6. Radical
7. Love to Give
8. Get Out My Face AKA Bad Kitty
9. R U Happy Now
10. The Day That I Met God