It's tough being in the shock rock business.

On one hand, nothing in rock is particularly shocking anymore. On the other hand, folks are pretty skittish these days, what with war, disease, famine, pestilence and all; go too far and you're branded as "inappropriate" and your CDs get crushed by a front-end loader in Louisiana. Damned both ways, as the artist himself might put it.

Undeterred, Marilyn Manson once again stomps the fine line between shock and camp with The Golden Age of Grotesque, out Tuesday.

Longtime fans of his oeuvre will note that he sticks to what he knows best - sinister electro-metal grooves and soft verses-raging choruses topped by the guttural muttering of cleverly satirical, rebellious lyrics that attempt to shed light (or darkness, depending) on a variety of social ills. He skewers the pretentious, slams the self-righteous, kicks the dogmatic and reserves the angriest middle fingers for his own critics with self-absorbed and thankfully self-aware vitriol.

You were expecting sweetness and light? That's the other problem of being a shock rocker: When you've already dissed God Himself, how do you top yourself?

Few rap-metal dudes (that's really what he is; Marilyn Manson can't sing any better than Charlie Manson can sweet-talk the parole board) can turn a phrase like this guy. In the title track, he refers to his band as "low-art gloominati - we aim to depress." In Ka-Boom Ka-Boom, he admits, "We're tasteless but taste good." And in The Bright Young Things he gurgles, "We don't rebel to sell, it just suits us well."

Admitting you're mainstream doesn't excuse it, of course, but on the plus side, this album is quite a bit better than what we've been hearing from the commercial metal scene lately.

As always, the true test, thought-provoking lyrical content and imagery aside, is this: Do you want to turn it as loud as possible? In the case of songs like mObscene and the delightfully titled turbo-shuffle Doll-Dagga Buzz-Buzz Ziggety-Zag, the answer is a resounding, "What?! I can't hear you!!"

Despite its spooky charms and gloomy anti-establishment attitude, The Golden Age of Grotesque should sink into the status quo with nary a ripple. That might be the most shocking thing of all.

As Manson croaks, "I'm the better of two evils." (More on Marilyn Manson)

Track Listing
1. This Is The New Sh*t
2. mOBSCENE
3. Doll-Dagga Buzz-Buzz Ziggety-Zag
4. Use Your Fist And Not Your Mouth
5. The Golden Age Of Grotesque
6. (s)AINT
7. Ka-Boom Ka-Boom
8. Slutgarden
9. Spade
10. Para-noir
11. The Bright Young Things
12. Better Of Two Evils
13. Vodevil
14. Obsequy (The Death Of Art)