Nothing Records Released Monday 13th November 2000

Parody holds no sway where the grotesque and surreal already underpin the everyday. What worth satire when confronted with the unbounded lunacy of America? Occasionally though, an angry new voice will pipe up and preach the obvious in a voice original enough to hold us rapt.

Bill Hicks told us nothing we didn't already know but we listened anyway as his words burned and stung. Bret Easton Ellis with his 'Salinger through the looking glass' take on the amoral 80's, 'American Psycho' and it's pre-Millennium counterpoint, Douglas Coupland's 'Girlfriend in a Coma' both managed to shed new light on an edifice that already glories in 24/7 neon: America. And now we have Marilyn Manson.

Recent hysterical reviews have sought to draw desperate comparison between Manson and the likes of Dante and Nietzsche, nevermind the merely mortal Ellis et al. So then, does 'Holy Wood' justify such giddy praise? Hmmmm... would a qualified 'almost' pass muster?

Like Hicks there is nothing here even remotely insightful or fresh, a post-Columbine United States that is still haunted by the joined-at-the-hip ghosts of Kennedy and Christ prowling the backwoods and backstreets whilst acting out Elvis songs to each other to keep warm. Motorcades and Crucifixes, Ministry riffs and Sisters of Mercy growls, all that which we've come to expect still prevails and far from being dead, God remains the fat sadistic killjoy he always was. So what's new?

Where 'Holy Wood' does come together and threaten to transcend its at times cliched parts is in its clarity of vision. This is a lean, visceral album that is as tripwire lithe as its maker. Manson's also remembered to write some great pop-goth tunes this time out, nowhere more so than with first single 'Disposable Teens'. Those critics who've glibly compared it to Gary Glitter just don't know their glam. It's Alvin Stardust with a cattle prod rammed up his coocachoo and all the better for being so.

'A Place In The Dirt' and 'The Fight Song' have all the stentorian menace of Laibach whilst 'Lamb Of God' borders on malign trip hop before inelegantly falling apart. 'Burning Flag' is Motorhead pistol-whipping Suicide over the non-payment of a bet. Perhaps.

Manson might never have the impact in the UK that he's had in the US because our God has long since retired and taken up a seat in the Lords. Father Ted was far more telling in it's mockery of the Church, a church that's fed only private needs for a long, long, time now. For all our failings it takes more than a few mock-crucifixion stills to break our bread.

Let's explode the myth as well that Manson has taken a finely honed scalpel to organised religion as he himself has claimed. What he has done is take a narrowly focused aim upon the whole bloated conceit that is Judaeo-Christianity and let rip with both barrels.

When the smoke clears, Islam doesn't even have to brush itself down. Ok, it's easier to brave picket lines and the wrath of Charlton Heston than face down a fatwa but it remains disingenuous to still claim 'Gods' as your target when it is in fact nothing of the sort. 'Holy Wood' is disco metal at it's current best, nothing more and Marilyn Manson is probably the best pop star to strut his over made-up stuff since Adam Ant.

What he isn't in any way is revolutionary or dangerous. 'Stand and Deliver' carried as much of a threat.