It was to be expected that Marilyn Manson would come up with a follow-up to the first chapter of One Assassination Under God. In itself, the first was quite a good record, but as far as I’m concerned, the bar is always set high when it comes to this American artist. It was an invitation to revisit the material from the past decade, with strong albums such as Pale Emperor and Heaven Upside Down, but above all the groundbreaking We Are Chaos. So the benchmark is clear.
This MTV icon from the ’90s obviously knows that an album is best opened with a track accompanied by strong video material. Unalive certainly carries some nostalgic vibes in that respect, and the atmosphere also drips from the video. A fine mood-setter, followed immediately by one of my highlights on this newcomer: Don’t Answer The Door. This is not the kind of Nod If You Understand hate-spitting found on the previous album, but rather the typically brooding depth that characterizes the man. Vocally, it also fits very well with the track’s delicious bass layer. That hate-spitting does return with Front Toward Enemy, but to my ears, the feeling really doesn’t come across. With Nod If You Understand from the previous album, you genuinely felt like smashing the place to pieces, whereas this feels more like aggressive music for teenagers who are angry at the world. That is, of course, a feeling that comes up more often with Manson and isn’t something you only experience live.
I do have to congratulate Manson on the dynamics of this album, because All The Vilest Things breaks dramatically with the previous track and may well be the best song on the record. A playful bass line and acoustic guitar, new wave-inspired atmospheric synths, and catchy vocals, with Manson further experimenting with a more sultry timbre. Here and there, the build-up of the song and the vocal input even give me an older Anathema feeling. Definitely one that can go straight onto the Manson playlist and would not sound out of place alongside the songs from We Are Chaos. That atmospheric quality and danceability can certainly also be found on None of the Suns, although the track makes less of an impact, as do a few more fillers that follow.
Also worth mentioning is the mix of heavier guitars and atmospheric synths on Exit Wound, a song with plenty of menace, but also dreamy passages in which Manson knows exactly how to find his groove. The man does, however, close with a track that has more depth. “I won’t go quietly in the night” sets the tone in the intro, and that is exactly how it should be on a Mabson album. It’s not musically heavy, but it is definitely a song that gets under your skin and has an emotional build-up.
“I guess you never prayed to God. If you did, why are you staring at the Devil today?” An interesting question, because why are we still so fixated on Marilyn Manson in 2026? With this second part of One Assassination Under God, the man provides an excellent answer to that question, because after a career spanning more than thirty years, Manson absolutely still has a reason to exist as an artist. This is not the best album of the past decade, but it is easily better than its predecessor and certainly worth buying. Fans of the ’90s won’t regret it either.
Score:
80/100
Label:
Nuclear Blast, 2026
Tracklisting:
- Unalive
- Don’t Answer The Door
- Front Toward Enemy
- All The Vilest Things
- None of the Suns
- Lucifer’s Teardrop
- The Arsonist
- Exit Wound
- … Enantiomorph
Line-up:
- Marilyn Manson – Vocals
- Tyler Bates – Guitar, bass guitar, synth, guitarviolin
- Gil Sharone – Drums
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