RECORD RACK

Marilyn Manson

“The High End of Low”

(Interscope)

* * *

Thanks to the general decline of Western civilization -- taken a look at next fall’s reality-TV lineup? -- Marilyn Manson’s rock doesn’t shock like it used to. Whether or not Manson himself is aware of this fact is up for debate: On his latest album, America’s leading goth-metal ghoul keeps up his usual barrage of lyrical firecrackers, some predictably inane (“I wanna kill you like they do in the movies”), some surprisingly potent (“We don’t like to kill our unborn / We need them to grow up and fight our wars”). There’s also a lead single with a title that’s unprintable in a newspaper like this one.

At its best, though, “The High End of Low” suggests that Manson is no longer content simply polishing his public-enemy persona. There’s a newly introspective edge to tracks such as “Devour” and “Leave a Scar,” for example, that complicates Manson’s now-familiar attack on middle-class morality. “And I’ll love you if you let me,” he sings in the former, seemingly questioning his own complicity in the rituals he once ridiculed.

Manson explored similar territory on 2007’s synth-heavy “Eat Me, Drink Me,” which detailed his split from ex-wife Dita Von Teese. But “High End” makes a deeper impression as a result of Manson’s reunion with longtime guitarist-bassist Twiggy Ramirez; together with producers Sean Beavan and Chris Vrenna, they sculpted a sound both harder-hitting and more detailed than on any previous Marilyn Manson record.

They even manage a surprise or two, as in “Running to the Edge of the World,” a lush acoustic power ballad complete with pretty falsetto vocals. At this point in Manson’s career, sophistication is perhaps as big a shock as he can deliver.

-- Mikael Wood

A rewarding hibernation

Grizzly Bear

“Veckatimest”

(Warp Records)

*** 1/2

In 2006, the Brooklyn quartet Grizzly Bear released “Yellow House,” a debut so drenched in atmosphere that listening to its songs was like ambling through the halls of a deserted lakeside Victorian. If “Yellow House” had a flaw, it was in song construction. Some were almost coma-inducing in their pacing and too intensely focused on harmonized vocals to the exclusion of everything else.

With their full-length follow-up, Grizzly Bear’s songwriters, singer Ed Droste and singer-guitarist Daniel Rossen, have strengthened their craft -- and surely it helped to have cross-genre pollinator Nico Muhly contribute choral and string quartet arrangements on a few tunes. “Veckatimest” is a gorgeously refined statement that isn’t content to merely be pretty -- a rippling current electrifies even its most gossamer of moments.

Grizzly Bear manages to be delicate and charged at the same time by stitching together compelling styles, including doo-wop, sea chanteys, the stringy interplay of jam bands, jazz time changes and the Anglican choral tradition. On “Fine for Now,” Rossen’s vocals have a touch of lounge to them but are strained and hushed. Christopher Bear’s drums predatorily tick around the vocals before capsizing the whole production in a tidal wave of cymbal crashes.

A feast for repeated listening, “Veckatimest” yields the kind of eccentricities a fan can spend months winding and unwinding. In other words, it affords plenty of amusement until the next album comes out.

-- Margaret Wappler

Underneath the froth, more froth

Phoenix

“Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix”

(Glassnote)

** 1/2

Optimistic high school band teachers and the dapper French quartet Phoenix might be the only people alive who can envision a wave of “Lisztomania” sweeping today’s youth. But the title of the leadoff track from Phoenix’s new album is an apt synopsis of their mannered yet effervescent romanticism.

“Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix,” a truly marvelous album title if ever there was one, is danceable but only a little disco, synth-driven but club- land averse, an easy record to like but a more difficult one to love.

It’s fitting that many American fans learned of the band through the “Lost in Translation” soundtrack, as “Wolfgang” evokes that film’s dazed sensuality and sense of fleeting pleasure. The first single, “1901,” is driven by a thick, shimmering Moog and Thomas Mars’ collar-loosening yelps, and “Lasso” and “Countdown” are especially scintillating rockers.

Yet after a good number of frothy tracks like “Girlfriend” and a long instrumental doodle, Phoenix’s pleasures become akin to eating a tin of cake frosting: A worthy and delicious Friday-night endeavor, but expect a touch of a toothache in the morning.

-- August Brown