Garbage: Let All We Imagine Be the Light

It’s been a few years since we got a full-on original release from Garbage. With every drop there are always a handful of great songs, but the albums as a whole can feel uneven. Let All We Imagine Be the Light breaks that cycle in a big way. A near-skipless record where almost every track stands on its own.

The dreamy intro of “There’s No Future in Optimism” takes everything you love about Garbage and puts a fresh spring on it.

Tracks like “Chinese Fire Horse” and “Have We Met” are among the strongest on the album, with catchy choruses and beats that mirror their more accessible material, even when the lyrics are anything but friendly. It’s clear Garbage is through with everyone’s shit. Some songs lean hard on the hooks, repeating them ad nauseam, but that’s part of the appeal. They’re hammered home and kept uncomplicated to drive the point across.

Production quality is top notch, exactly what you’d expect from a band operating at this level for decades. Intentionally muddy and fuzzy, matching the lyrical weight, this album has a haze or an aura. There's tension beneath everything. The songs feel uncomfortable but welcoming. It’s a tightrope that mostly lands, especially on “Hold,” with baritone whispers giving way to falsetto shrieks, or “Sisyphus,” with its mousy, almost lullaby-like intro.

Oppression meets optimism seems to be the recurring theme, carried perfectly through the vocals and backing layers. Constantly pushing the stone uphill while still looking for a way out.

Things pick up slightly in the latter half with “Love to Give” and “Get Out of My Face.” The first half leans slow and moody, songs that simmer and brew. The tempo rarely moves faster than a jog, which could be seen as a knock on variety, but each track has a distinct enough identity that the album doesn’t really lose points there.

Ending with “R U Happy Now” and “The Day I Met God” was a calculated and brilliant move. Dreamy mid-tempo reflections that encapsulate the album’s themes. It closes on a rising, almost enlightened note, balancing hope and despair, tension and release.

Thirty years after their debut, Garbage deliver something chilling and haunting, yet still dreamy and strangely uplifting. Like their career, the album reverberates between ecstasy and pain, love and loss, light and dark.

A welcome addition to a stacked 2025, and one of the standout front-to-back records of the year.