We tried to strip a lot of that back and make a lot of room for Shirleys vocals.

You can read 20 great reviews, and then you read one bad one, and thats the one you remember.

The drummer and coproducer of Garbage is musing over the overwhelmingly positive reviews of the alt-rock bands sixth studio album, Strange Little Birds, its darkest, weirdest effort yet.

The disc was released last month on Stunvolume, the bands independent label.

I guess when we put a new album out, we never know exactly what to expect, Vig continues.

When our first record came out a lot of people really loved it, and a lot of people didnt.

Released in 1995, Garbages double-platinum, self-titled debut spun out major singles such as Stupid Girl and Only Happy When it Rains, but its openly experimental, fiercely sharp and unabashedly melancholy edge didnt sit right with everyone.

Vig, 60, hasnt forgotten the brutal early reviews from U.K.

NME and Melody Maker, who harped on the band and even more so on Shirley Manson, Garbages Scottish lead singer.

I remember one review, they compared us to the Spice Girls and said that we were not as authentic that Shirley Manson was not as authentic as the Spice Girls.

The reviews have since gotten nicer, but Vig still doesnt hesitate to call Manson the MVP (most valuable player) of Garbage.

He takes all the opportunities he can get to give praise to her enticingly haunting vocals, a trademark characteristic of the band.

Shirley is the real deal obviously, were still going 22 years later.

Formed by Vig, bassist Duke Erikson and guitarist Steve Marker in Madison, Wis., in the early 90s, the three-piece brought on Manson soon after members discovered her voice in a music video for the short-lived Scottish group Angelfish.

Throughout a two-decade-plus tenure, halted only by a hiatus in the mid-00s, Garbage has steadily carved out an identity that is easy to pinpoint.

When you hear a Garbage song on the radio, you know its Garbage.

At this point in our career, to have an identifiable sound like we do is a plus.

Were not trying to reinvent who we are; were trying to take who we are and amplify it.

Vig predates Garbage with credits on landmark albums such as Nirvanas Nevermind and the Smashing Pumpkins Siamese Dream.

He is often considered to be one of pop cultures most revered producers, having also worked with Sonic Youth, House of Pain, Against Me, Foo Fighters and Green Day.

The drummer wont be with Garbage when it performs in Detroit on Saturday.

Hes out on doctors orders with acute sinusitis.) Still, during a recent interview with the Free Press, he took time to reflect on the bands history and the making of Strange Little Birds and to offer some words of advice to budding rockers.

QUESTION: As a band that has been around for more than two decades, what steps do you and your band mates take to keep each album sounding fresh ANSWER: On Strange Little Birds, we knew we wanted to make something a little different sounding than the last album, Not Your Kind of People.

It was a bunch of different things: trying to be real spontaneous and creative in the studio, taking some of the rock out like the rock guitars and rock drums and relying more on vintage synthesizers and atmospheric moments, a lot of sound processing to get moments in the songs that are more cinematic and less typical Garbage.

But there are (still) some tracks on the album that are very much Garbage, like Empty and the chorus of Blackout, which is really dense.

Thats something we like to do as a band to put layers of guitars and keyboards into songs.

Garbage Butch Vig