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iTunes Review

After their debut album proved an alternative band needn’t be ugly and abrasive, nor discard a love for pop music, glamour and overt sexiness to be successful, Garbage decided to gently tweak the formula for their follow-up. Devised by three Midwestern recording engineers — most notably Nirvana producer Butch Vig on drums — who understood how to get a massive sound onto tape, Garbage carefully treaded the line between the music’s natural tension and the automated computer perfection that was within their technologically over-educated reach. Edinburgh-based singer Shirley Manson not only serves as this band of tech geeks’ human image and focal point, she serves to humanize their music as well. Drum loops and expertly edited guitar and keyboards tend towards the cold and impersonal, but with Manson adding her alluring and emotionally ambivalent pipes to well-written tunes such as “I Think I’m Paranoid,” “Temptation Waits” and “Push It,’ the band came to represent a beating heart in danger of being crushed by the computer age.