butch vig

Garbage are back, announcing their first new album in almost four years.
Dubbed Let All That We Imagine Be the Light, the new LP will be their eighth, and follows on from the release of 2021’s No Gods No Masters and a pair of EPs in recent years. Their new record arrives on May 30 via Stun Volume.

“Our last album was extremely forthright. Born out of frustration and outrage – it had a kind of scorched earth, pissed off quality to it,” singer Shirley Manson explains in a statement. “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.

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“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,” Manson adds. “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.”

Recorded in a number of locations – including Los Angeles’ Red Razor Sounds, Butch Vig’s Grunge is Dead studio, and Manson’s bedroom – the album’s announcement notably hasn’t been accompanied by a lead single. Rather, the band have promised that a preview will arrive “in the coming weeks”.

The new record also arrives following a few months of downtime for the band, with Garbage announcing in August they were forced to cancel the remainder of their 2024 tour dates due to Manson requiring “surgery and rehabilitation” for an undisclosed injury suffered while on tour in Europe. The group are slated to return to the road in March for a run of South American tour dates.

The impending release of Let All That We Imagine Be the Light will also become Garbage’s fourth album since they resumed activity in earnest in 2010, following a five-year period of hiatus.

Their debut self-titled album, Garbage, released in 1995, achieved double-platinum status and peaked at No. 20 on the Billboard 200. Their follow-up album, Version 2.0, released in 1998, reached No. 13 on the Billboard 200 and further cemented their reputation as one of the leading bands of the era.

Garbage have remained busy with musical projects in recent years, including 2021’s, No Gods No Masters. The album debuted at No. 95 on the Billboard 200 and included tracks like “The Men Who Rule the World.” They also collaborated with artists like Screaming Females and Brody Dalle on a special edition of the album, and toured with Alanis Morissette on her Jagged Little Pill anniversary tour in 2022.