Official Return of Garbage

The members of alt-rock group Garbage have been in and out of the studio since the start of the year, but fans of the band have been wondering for just as long when we would get to see the fruits of their labor. Apparently, the answer is spring 2012.

Garbage released a statement yesterday evening announcing that they are putting the finishing touches on a collection of songs that will make up their fifth studio album. This will be the band's first release since the 2007 greatest hits collection Absolute Garbage. The band's last studio album, Bleed Like Me, was released in 2005, making the forthcoming as-yet-untitled LP the first batch of new Garbage music in seven years.

The will-they/won't-they back and forth over whether or not Garbage would release another album has been almost as grueling as the Arrested Development movie saga. I kid, I kid, but timely comparison, no? But really, between the confusion over whether Garbage was broken up or not and the fact that frontwoman Shirley Manson's solo project never came to fruition, this news is as miraculous as the AD limited-TV-show-then-movie news from this past weekend.

The same few excerpts from the statement are floating around everywhere, but my absolute favorite lines have to be these:

"We are making a record filled with the music we love to hear. The new songs have been inspired more by what we haven't been hearing rather than by what we have."

It gives me chills! That is such a powerful idea and something so true to the spirit of what Garbage has always represented for me as a band. I cannot wait to hear what came out of their sessions and what made it through their "four-way brain filter." The teasers they've been posting online this year are starting to come together and paint a beautiful albeit vague picture. The spring cannot come soon enough.