Garbage - Let All That We Imagine Be The Light

  by Zena Grieg

published: 8 / 7 / 2025

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Review

Acclaimed for their futuristic industrial rock, traversing a range of genres, iconic band Garbage have brought out a new record, thirty years after their debut album. Written during lead singer Shirley Manson’s lengthy and painful recovery from hip surgery, ‘Let All That We Imagine Be The Light’, their eighth studio album, casts an uncompromising mirror on contemporary societal norms, the US political landscape and state of the world. The songs are reflective, at their core an unrelenting call to be resilient and not to give in to despair, a vibrant, colourful mix of rock, alt-pop and electronica. Songs to listen out for in this ten-track collection include: the scene-setting opener ‘There Is No Future in Optimism’ with its accompanying defiant video and uplifting lyrics: “There is no future that can’t be designed/With imagination and a beautiful mind”; a trenchant tirade against ageism and misogyny in rocker ‘Chinese Fire Horse: “Yeah, I may be much older, so much older/Yeah, yeah so much older than you/But I’ve still got my power in my brain and my body/I’ll take no shit from you/…Wait a fucking minute, wait a minute/I’m not dead, I’m not done”; the spiralling ‘Hold’; gritty ‘Have We Met (The Void)’ with its existential dread; the melodic, plaintive 'Sisyphus’, pervaded by a resilient sense of optimism in the face of futility: “They’ll try to hoodwink you/They’ll tell you different, but you must resist/’Cause you know the truth/… This little body of mine/Is going to make things right”; atmospheric ‘Radical’; evocative, soaring ‘Love To Give’; plus ‘R U Happy’ with its excoriating castigation of the new socio-political landscape in the USA: “Make no mistake, friend, they hate your women/They rob your children and they love their guns/…They kill books, they break rules, they kill dreams”; and the cinematic closer ‘The Day That I Met God’ with its hypnotic chorus and epiphanic message: “And so there I was/Face to face with God/It was everyone I’d ever loved”. ‘Let All that We Imagine Be the Light’ is emotionally resonating, with songs which draw the listener in, compelling and propelling them on an uncompromising journey through darkness and light.

Track Listing:-

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

Band Links:-

https://www.garbage.com/
https://www.facebook.com/GarbageOffici
https://www.x..com/garbage
https://www.instagram.com/garbage

Label Links:-

https://www.bmg.com/uk/
https://www.facebook.com/BMGRM
https://twitter.com/BMG
https://www.facebook.com/bmgchrysalisu
https://twitter.com/bmguk

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