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Apr 09, 2025 By Mark Redfern Photography by Joseph Cultice

1990s alt-rock titans Garbage are releasing a new album, Let All That We Imagine Be the Light, on May 30 via BMG. Now they have shared its first single, “There’s No Future In Optimism,” via a music video. Benjy Kirkman directed the video. Watch it below.

The band’s frontwoman Shirley Manson had this to say about the song in a press release: “I love the title. The band sent it me and I was like, ‘This is great. I’m keeping that.’ But the lyrics are an action against that title. Because if we allow our fatalism or our negativity to really take over, we will crumble. It’s about a city, in my case, Los Angeles, but it could be anywhere where bad stuff is happening. After the George Floyd murder, which is one of few things in my life that I wish I’d never seen: I was changed entirely by seeing the footage of that cop kneeling on George Floyd’s neck. In Los Angeles there were huge protests and a lot of upheaval after that. Above our house in Hollywood, there were helicopters all day long, for days on end. It was precarious, chaotic and terrifying.”

Garbage’s lineup remains all four founding members—Shirley Manson, Duke Erikson, Steve Marker, and Butch Vig. The album was produced by the band and longtime engineer Billy Bush and recorded in three main locations: Red Razor Sounds in Los Angeles, Vig’s studio Grunge Is Dead, and Manson’s bedroom.

Manson had this to say about Let All That We Imagine Be the Light: “This record is about what it means to be alive, and about what it means to face your imminent destruction. It’s hopeful. It’s very tender towards what it means to be a human being. Our flaws and our failures are still beautiful, even though we’re taught that they’re not. This is a tender, thrilling record about the fragility of life.”

Garbage’s last album, No Gods No Masters, was released in 2021 via Stunvolume/Infectious Music.

Read our interview with the band’s Shirley Manson about the album here.

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