According to Marilyn Manson, divorcing his wife of one year - the burlesque dancer Dita von Teese - left him "completely destroyed, like I had no soul left".
How would anyone be able to tell the difference? Since he became the self appointed "god of fuck" in the mid-90s, it has been Manson's ability to shock that's earned his celebrity. For years he achieved it by performing songs that dealt with death, mutilation, torture and bestiality while looking like a mad professor's experiment with a glass of milk, a spider and the 1978 Ann Summers catalogue. Among the many hysterical urban myths about him is the one that he had several of his ribs surgically removed to facilitate orally pleasuring himself.
Now that it's apparent he's going through that dullest of human ailments, the mid-life crisis (this 39-year-old is now dating a teen
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actress with a thing for men in make up) his ability to shock has utterly vanished. These days he seems no more threatening than Alan Partridge lapdancing in his posing pouch for the head of the BBC. It's all a bit pathetic.
What's left is the last thing anyone thinks about – his music. And here he seems to be enjoying a renaissance. Eat Me, Drink Me is far and away the best thing he's ever done. His deathly growl remains unfaltering throughout and the lyrics and song titles (Just A Car Crash Away, If I Was Your Vampire and (my favourite) Mutilation Is The Most Sincere Form Of Flattery remain steadfastly gothic. But there's a drive and energy that's been lacking before - and in Heart Shaped Glasses and They Said Hell's Not Hot, even a couple of dark pop epics that are like Meatloaf crossed with Nine Inch Nails. Pity no one's bothered. 
Eat Me, Drink Me is on Interscope
To buy this CD  
FIRST POSTED JUNE 1, 2007
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