Love him or hate him, Marilyn Manson’s music has been meaningful to our culture for decades. The dark king’s reign continues today with the announcement of his eleventh studio album, WE ARE CHAOS, which will release on September 11. To celebrate the news, Manson has released the record’s eponymous single today.
The LP was recorded prior to the pandemic, though Manson stresses that “the stories seem as if we wrote them today. This was recorded to its completion without anyone hearing it until it was finished. There is most definitely a side A and side B in the traditional sense. But just like an LP, it is a flat circle and it’s up to the listener to put the last piece of the puzzle into the picture of songs.”
Produced by Shooter Jennings, Manson also adds that the “concept album is the mirror Shooter and I built for the listener – it’s the one we won’t stare into. There are so many rooms, closets, safes and drawers. But in the soul or your museum of memories, the worst are always the mirrors. Shards and slivers of ghosts haunted my hands when I wrote most of these lyrics.”
The cover of WE ARE CHAOS is a self-portrait by Manson himself, titled Infinite Darkness. It could be received as the mirror he holds to himself, which isn’t an interpretation too outlandish given the level of thought that Manson has invested into his discography’s upcoming instalment.
“Making this record, I had to think to myself: ‘Tame your crazy, stitch your suit. And try to pretend that you are not an animal’ but I knew that mankind is the worst of them all. Making mercy is like making murder. Tears are the human body’s largest export.”
