I had high hopes for the seventh album from Manson, being a fan of most of his past work and thoroughly enjoying his last album, Eat Me, Drink Me. The High End Of Low attempts to continue the energy from that album somewhat, but unfortunately it tends to sound more subdued and repetitive. The same type of fuzzy distortion is utilized a lot, and it just does not fit with many of the slower songs. The album is not without its good songs however.

Devour starts the album off with soft, clean electric guitar work that somewhat reminds me of Mechanical Animals. The song continues softly until the end when a heavy, catchy riff finally comes in to pick up the pace a bit. I thought this was a strange way to start the album off seeing as it is not that exciting and does not immediately grab your attention. The next song, Pretty As A Swastika starts out with the super distorted guitar and bass that we heard a bit of at the end of the first track. This song is extremely bass-heavy in the chorus, which almost sounds like a march. The production has been sub-par so far in my opinion; everything seems a bit too fuzzy. Leave A Scar starts out with some catchy bass and guitar work. The song starts out good and the chorus is pretty decent too, but unfortunately it gets repetitive far too quickly.Four Rusted Horses starts out with some interesting acoustic guitar work in a sort of southern style, something never really heard from Manson. The problem with this song is that I expected it to explode with some dirty southern rock energy, but unfortunately it never does all through its entire five-minute duration. Arma-Goddamn-Motherfuckin-Geddon starts out with some pseudo-industrial elements that Manson is fond of. Unfortunately this song also suffers from being far too repetitive. The songwriting is not bad, but there’s never anything unexpected thrown in, which is something I have always liked about Manson, he usually knows how to be unpredictable. Running To The Edge Of The World is a balladesque track that starts out with some acoustic guitar, reminding me of something that, like the title track, could've been heard on Mechanical Animals or perhaps Holy Wood. The song is really good and actually sounds like it has some feeling behind it, but the production just does not fit. It sounded far too fuzzy, which kept me from enjoying it as much as I should have. The rest of the album continues at a pretty slow pace, although there are a few tracks that I liked such as Wight Spider, a really slow yet heavy song that also sounds like it has more feeling behind than many of the others. We're From America's lyrics are pretty funny and somewhat thought provoking, but once again it is just not very musically exciting. Into The Fire is a pretty decent song with the piano intro and finally some good technical guitar work from Twiggy Ramirez. At this point however I was struggling to keep listening to the album all the way through, trying to keep from skipping over some tracks.

I was pretty disappointed with this album overall. It went in much the same direction as Eat Me, Drink Me, but with a lot of slower songs that sounded a lot like filler to me. The album is fifteen tracks long and over seventy minutes, which turned out to be way too long. I got bored far too quickly. The album tends to alternate between heavy, groovy songs and slower, more balladesque type songs. Unfortunately both become far too repetitive and ultimately lack substance. I am not sure what happened here but it seems like Manson and the band attempted to continue the same style from the previous album. Unfortunately most of the energy is just not there and, aside from the few tracks that stand out, it falls flat.