Coming up screaming from the depths of Florida — there being no scarier state in the union — Marilyn Manson cannily positioned themselves as a goth-industrial hybrid on their debut album, Portrait of an American Family. At this stage in their evolution, Marilyn Manson was clearly a band, not just the project of Brian Warner, aka Mr. Manson, who would later simply adopt his band's name as his own. Also, horror-show schlock was a bigger factor than it would be later on, when he wanted to be the Antichrist Superstar for the world at large. In other words, it's Manson at his silliest, singing about "My Monkey" and "Snake Eyes and Sissies." Beneath all the camp shock, there are signs of Warner's unerring eye for genuine outrage and musical talent, particularly on the trio of "Cake and Sodomy," "Lunchbox," and "Dope Hat." But even a few years on from its 1994 release, Portrait of an American Family began to sound a little dated, especially since its Nine Inch Nails-meets-W.A.S.P.-meets-Alice Cooper formula was fully realized on Manson's follow-up album, Antichrist Superstar. Here, it's in sketch form, and by the end of the album it's clear that Warner, Manson, whatever you want to call him, needs a full canvas to truly wreak havoc.

    Boasting a fuller sound and a more focused sense of purpose, Antichrist Superstar is a substantial improvement on Marilyn Manson's debut album, Portrait of an American Family. The band draws equally from schlock metal, progressive metal, new wave, goth rock, and industrial rock, and with the help of producers Trent Reznor and Dave Ogilvie, the group creates a boiling, mockingly satanic mess of guitars, synthesizers, and ridiculously "scary" vocals. Though the sonic details make Antichrist Superstar an intriguing listen, it's not as extreme as it could have been — in particular, the guitars are surprisingly anemic, sounding like buzzing vacuums instead of unwieldy chainsaws. Even with that considered, Antichrist Superstar is an unexpectedly cohesive album from a silly shock metal band and will stand as Marilyn Manson's definitive statement.

    Antichrist Superstar performed its intended purpose — it made Marilyn Manson internationally famous, a living realization of his fictional "antichrist superstar." He had gained the attention of not only rock fans, but the public at large; however, many critics bestowed their praise not on the former Brian Warner, but on Trent Reznor, Manson's mentor and producer. Surely angered by the attention being focused elsewhere, he decided to break from Reznor and industrial metal with his third album, Mechanical Animals. Taking his image and musical cues from Bowie, Warner reworked Marilyn Manson into a sleek, androgynous space alien named Omega, а la Ziggy Stardust, and constructed a glammy variation of his trademark goth metal. With pal Billy Corgan as an unofficial consultant and Soundgarden producer Michael Beinhorn manning the boards, Manson turns Mechanical Animals into a big, clean rock record — the kind that stands in direct opposition to the dark, twisted industrial nightmares he painted with his first two albums. It can make for a welcome change of pace, since his glammed-up goth is more tuneful than his clattering industrial cacophony, but it lacks the cartoonish menace that distinguished his prior music. And without that, Marilyn Manson seems a little ordinary, believe it or not — more like a '90s version of Alice Cooper than ever before. True, Mechanical Animals is the group's most accessible effort, but Manson should have remembered one thing — demons are never that scary in the light.

    The Last Tour on Earth, the live souvenir from the ill-fated Mechanical Animals tour, is an aural document of a primarily visual experience. Marilyn Manson's records are extremely well crafted, filled with revealing sonic details, but in concert he concentrates on spectacle, preferring dazzling visuals to new arrangements. That's not a bad thing — Manson is an agent provocateur and his shows should be an overwhelming visual experience. There's no need for reinvented versions of "The Beautiful People" or "Irresponsible Hate Anthem," since they serve as the soundtrack for the sights. So, even if it's a good selection of Manson favorites performed by a tight band, it's hard to see the purpose of The Last Tour on Earth. Apart from rougher vocals and slightly more immediate sound, there are no true differences between the stage and studio versions of these songs. Unlike many live albums, there isn't much visceral energy, because the music had to be fairly regimented to coincide with the visuals. Based on the music, it's hard to tell that this is a live album, except for stray crowd noises and Manson's on-stage ramblings, which are more interesting than the music. It's fascinating to hear him act like a sober Jim Morrison, trying to get his audience to yell "motherf*cker" and winding up with an incoherent "maoohahfuer," or relating his spellbinding vision of a dreamworld, where the land is made of drugs, cops give Manson head, and God is spelled "D-R-U-G-S," especially since these rants are delivered, by name, to the Midwestern off-markets of Grand Rapids, MI, and Cedar Rapids, IA. This may be the best moment of the record, but it doesn't change the fact that it's not necessary for anyone but diehards.

    In 2000, he not only was recovering from his fans' rejection of Mechanical Animals, he was scarred from Columbine and, worst of all, he was no longer America's demon dog. What was Brian Warner to do, standing on such uneasy ground? As a smart man and savvy marketer, he knew that it was time to consolidate his strengths, blend Omega with Antichrist Superstar, and return with a harsh, controversial, operatic epic: a vulgar concept album to seduce his core audiences of alienated teens and cultural cops. The resulting album, Holy Wood (In the Shadow of the Valley of Death), is intended as the third part of the trilogy beginning with Antichrist Superstar, and its convoluted story line is fairly autobiographical, but the amazing thing isn't the story — it's that he figured out to meld the hooks and subtle sonic shading of Mechanical Animals with the ugly, neo-industrial metallicisms of Antichrist. Consequently, it's easy to see this as the definitive Marilyn Manson album, since it's tuneful and abrasive. Then again, much of its charm lies in Manson trying so hard, perfecting details in the concept, lyrics, themes, production, sequencing, the tarot card parodies in the liner notes, the self-theft, the self-consciously blasphemous cover art. There's so much effort, Holy Wood winds up a stronger and more consistent album than any of his other work. If there's any problem, it's that Manson's shock rock seems a little quaint in 2000. Eminem's vibrant, surrealistic white-trash fantasias were the sound of 2000, while Marilyn Manson's rock operas, religious baiting, and goth gear are from an era passed. It's to Warner's credit as, yes, an artist that Holy Wood works anyway.

    Timing is everything in pop music, and Marilyn Manson hit a zeitgeist in the mid-'90s with Antichrist Superstar, riding the post-alternative wave to the top of the charts with his dark, arty, industrial metal. He was a proud shock artist and a great interview, one of the few rockers of his time who stood his own against his attackers by offering articulate, informed counterarguments to their blustering rage. Like any shock rocker, though, the novelty wears thin fast, and what was once scary turns into self-parody. Manson, no stranger to rock history, attempted to circumvent this by turning quickly to the left with the glam-soaked Mechanical Animals, but in doing so he lost huge portions of his audience, and by the time he returned to scary industrial metal form on Holy Wood in 2000, he seemed out of date and few critics or fans paid attention. Three years later, he unleashed his fifth album, The Golden Age of Grotesque, and he still seemed out of step with the times, but there was a difference — he sounded comfortable with that development. Also, by 2003, rock, particularly heavy metal, was in desperate need of artists with a grand vision and ambition, which Manson has in spades. After all, The Golden Age is designed to be a modern update of German art, vaudeville, and decadent Hollywood glamour of the '30s, all given a thudding metallic grind, of course. In an era when heavy rockers have no idea what happened in the '80s, much less the '30s, it's hard not to warm to this, even if his music isn't your own personal bag. Musically, Manson isn't departing from his basic sound — he's following through on the return to basics Holy Wood represented — but his first self-production has resulted in an album that feels light and nimble, even though it's drenched in distortion and screams. It feels as if Manson now feels liberated from not being consistently in the spotlight, and his music has opened up as well. With that new freedom, he gets silly on occasion — the gibberish on the ridiculously titled "This Is the New Sh*t," the appropriation of Faith No More's "Be Aggressive" for "mOBSCENE," the lyric "You are the church/I am the steeple/When we f*ck we are God's People" — but instead of knocking the record off track, they are part of the big picture on this oversized album. What matters here, as it always does on a Marilyn Manson album, is the overarching concept, and while The Golden Age of Grotesque has some kind of theme, its particulars aren't discernible, but the overall feeling resonates strongly. This messy, unruly, noisy burlesque may fall on its face, but it puts itself in the position where it can either stand or fall, and, unlike in the past, Manson isn't taking himself so seriously that he sounds stiff. It all adds up to a very good album — maybe not his best, and certainly not one that will attract the most attention, but it's a hell of a lot grander than what his peers are producing, and holds its own with his previous records. It's also a bit more fun, too, and that counts for a lot.