I saw this album in a dream several years ago. I’m out foraging in the ruins of civilization as part of an organized effort. We are looking, in particular, for technology that can be reverse engineered.
So I’m looking around in this gloomy, hilly place. The sky is red and has been for awhile- but never brighter than either twilight or dawn. To my surprise, I find a large but squat vehicle parked in the shadow of a hill.
It was, pretty much, a big trailer with unfamiliar doodads, here and there. And an internal computer and hardware for an internet connection. Those last two details were the ones that mattered. These machines would be the basis for accessing information long buried in unusable drives. More importantly: this was basic, functional computer design- something many had thought gone forevever, according the dream’s context.
There were other things, of course. Little bedroom nooks containing vestiges of human remains. Cooking amenities. Near the driver’s space, there was a stereo. It looked pretty normal for the car stereos I remembered- at least a certain kind. The physical media slot was too short and thick for a CD but wasn’t quite right for a cassette tape or 8-track either.
In some sliding compartment, I found several thin, small, glassy squares. Some of the glassy-plasticky cases had white stickers with labels written over them in pen or marker. There were also what looked like store-bought cases with album covers printed on one side. There was at least one Nirvana album- it was either Nevermind or In Utero. Maybe both. There was also a printed case featuring a Marilyn Manson painting, left of center against a black background. The painting depicted a gaunt face with burning eyes and a halo.
The one in my dream had the painting closer to the bottom and all the way against the lower left corner. Above it was like an inch of space where the black background continued which was used for the artist and album name. I assumed it was, anyway.
Thing is, I couldn’t read any of the writing I was seeing. I couldn’t even tell you what a given word in this alphabet looked like. The dream either happened too long ago to remember (I’d ballpark it between 2016 and 2018) or the letters were so unfamiliar to my eyes that I remember them, simply, as unreadable. But I apparently had enough memory in common with my waking self to recognize that it was a Marilyn Manson painting (the Nirvana was likewise only recognizable by the album art).
Am I saying, unequivocally, that I “foresaw” this album? Of course not. Sentiment and memory have a way of washing together in pareidolia. But the resmblance with the odd little album from my dream is uncanny.
The version of One Assassination Under God – chapter 1 in the waking world is also an odd little album. The chapter 1 part makes me think of the narrative ambition and conceptual wheels within wheels within Holy Wood. If so, I’ll be happy to see it manifest in future chapters. I’ve always loved him best when he goes artsy and esoteric.
Chapter 1 is brief and substantial. Relatively brief, anyway. I recently got reacquainted with my vinyl copy of Holy Wood and I think it’s the ideal way to experience the album. Like the vinyl version of Mechanical Animals, each side of each LP is a thematic vignette. Vinyl Holy Wood, though, has its vignettes in the same order as the CD, with each one on a single side. I was listening to it while writing yesterday and the overall effect is epic.
Epic usually entails size. If Holy Wood is a big-budget art house film, One Assassination Under God – chapter 1 is more direct and punchy. Things unfold just as sequentially, though. The first song, the title track, has a surprisingly familiar relationship with the rest of the album.
In Manson’s ‘Triptych’ the opening songs are like a zoom-in: first the place, then the people, then the person / viewpoint character. Antichrist Superstar: Irresponsible Hate Anthem, The Beautiful People, Dried Up, Tied and Dead to the World. Mechanical Animals: The Great Big White World, The Dope Show, Mechincal Animals. Holy Wood: Godeatgod, The Love Song, The Fight Song.
The same pattern holds true here: One Assassination Under God, No Funeral Without Applause and Nod If You Understand. The subject matter of this jumping-off point feels similar to grief. A way forward is forecosed, resulting in corrosive skepticism: it was always bullshit and all those steps forward were a waste of time at best and self-destructive at worst.
We are, however, only in the first half of the first chapter. If the Triptych narratives zoomed in to an individual viewpoint character, to slowly come around to either confirmation or denial of the establishing shot of the ‘place’…than this album zooms out.
The next song, As Sick As The Secrets Within, reintroduces coccoon-womb imagery recognizable from ACSS and HW. Musically, it embraces layered, “wall of sound” instrumentation in contrast to the more stripped-down numbers beforehand.
Speaking of stripped down: for someone who became a Marilyn Manson fan around age twelve-thirteenish at the turn of the millenia, the simplicity stands out. We Are Chaos was a relatively simple album but not like this one. The alternative country energy-exchange from Shooter Jennings made it feel like a new, unfamiliar and seductive landscape. Even if We Are Chaos was shorter and less narratively complicated, it still had meticulous, creative exuberance. Imagining Manson and Jennings writing that album is like imagining kids coloring: even if the picture is simple, the kids are excited by every little nuance and, as soon as they notice the potential for something, one of them needs to grab a crayon and make sure it happens.
In the Triptych albums, the larger-than-life feelings were the jumping-off point for larger-than-life stories. In One Assassination Under God – chapter 1, the larger-than-life feelings get gulped down and passed-by in the first arc.
Or, if not passed-by, Manson does not layer them in the same way he used to. The murky, watery atmosphere from As Sick As The Secrets Within also appears in Death Is Not A Costume and Sacrifice Of The Mass, as does the elaboration of the imagery. One of my favorite things about One Assassination Under God – chapter 1 is how As Sick As The Secrets Within and Death Is Not A Costume build on each other. The first one is a nesting doll- people inside of people. The second continues the zoom-out with anthropomorthic house/place imagery. I can’t help but wonder what kind of resonance this has with Marilyn Manson himself, since he’s always had a very creative and recognizable way of anthropomorphizing, going back to Portrait of an American Family but just as visible in The Golden Age of Grotseque, the short film Doppelherz, The Pale Emperor and We Are Chaos.
The more single-ready songs like Sacrilegious, Meet Me In Purgatory and Raise The Red Flag provide contrast to the more dense numbers and makes the simplicity feel a bit more…safe, let’s say. Meet Me In Purgatory is the only Marilyn Manson song that, to me, feels like it could have come from the same family as Long Hard Road Out Of Hell (I know it’s an ACSS outtake but it does not require ACSS for cohesion). Raise The Red Flag nearly raises the spectre of genuine positivity before Sacrifice Of The Mass ends things with an unsettling cliffhanger. With the simplicity.
Yeah yeah, I said Sacrifice Of The Mass was one of the complicated ones. I think I only said that because it paints a vivid picture that the punchy songs usually don’t have room for. It’s simple, though. It is evocative of a haunted village, like Cupid Carries A Gun. That song was orgiastic and swaggering, though. Sacrifice Of The Mass is resigned. I almost said ‘heart-broken’ but this album feels more like a reaction to heart break rather than the thing itself. It is haunted by the fear that all of those swallowed feelings were not transcended- merely waiting for you to notice them again.
Perhaps it’s more unsettling than it would normally be, since we know this is just ‘chapter 1’. One Assassination Under God is yet to be completed, so who’s to say where the ending of this segment will lead.
New playlist:
One Assassination Under God
mOBSCENE
The Horrible People (remix)
Sacrilegious
Evidence
As Sick As The Secrets Within
Are You The Rabbit?
Death Is Not A Costume
Born Villain
Don’t Chase The Dead
Dope Hat
Doll-Daga Buzz-Buzz Ziggety-Zag
SAY10
Tattooed In Reverse
Meet Me In Purgatory
Threats Of Romance
AilixChaerea 