You could have guessed that Brian Molko is a renegade angel for a quarter of a century, ever since he let it rip so beautifully queero-campy and anti-Brit pop – but who would have guessed that he would return after a nine-year album break with a harp that now opened the eighth album NEVER LET ME GO? On the other hand: The band, which now survives as a duo (after three worn-out drummers), has the great trump card of Molko’s metallic, nasal singing voice, which in the end always held everything together, whether it was simple punk chords or avant-garde moods.
? Buy NEVER LET ME GO at Amazon.de
Admittedly, the harp loop is from the iPad, but Placebo sound fresh, and which band from the 90s can you say that about? And they sound like placebo, although they have a much broader sound than on the two predecessors. But they still play their greatest strengths in mid-tempo: Firework dynamics in the synthesizers and all kinds of fun like an Eleanor Rigby memory string riff.
The new record is also made for the screaming stadium full of lonely hearts.
In addition to the obvious placebo subjects (self-destruction through drug excess, mutually toxic relationships, etc.), the lead single “Beautiful James” also features a (halfway) optimistic, non-heteronormative feel-good love song. But other things also feel very much like the 2020s, for example when Molko sings about digital surveillance by large corporations (“Surrounded By Spies”) or about the eco-apocalyptic end of the world (“Try Better Next Time”).
Seen in this way, one could actually say that Placebo not only expand their sound palette, but also turn from the inside, from the intimate, this time more outwards. Both were always political. And one thing has remained: the new record is also made for the screaming stadium full of lonely hearts.
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