In this week’s look at rock’s biggest releases, Rolling Stone’s Caryn Ganz breaks down new albums from Marilyn Manson and Phoenix. Manson may have mastered the art of shock rock in the Nineties, when he was blamed for everything from Columbine to the general decline of Western Civilization, but horrifying the masses is a much tougher job at a time when extreme sex and violence are a mere click away, 24 hours a day. So the rocker’s latest effort, seventh album The High End of Low, falls short lyrically (lines like “You’re as pretty as a swastika” just don’t have the same bite anymore), but finds success in an unlikely place: ballads like the blues-tinged “Four Rusted Horses.”

French rockers Phoenix scored a nice slot on Saturday Night Live this past season, and with good reason: their new disc Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix imagines what it’d be like if the Strokes discovered disco (and this is a good thing). As a bonus, the four-star album features the best song about the inner turmoil of 19th century classical composer Franz Liszt you’ll hear all year.

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