Corner of Chaos
Created | Updated Mar 23, 2006
Placebo - Meds
After releasing a Greatest Hits compilation (or, for once accurately named, A Singles Collection) most bands, especially in the modern-day music world of instantly gratified, unevolving musicians etc, swear that they won't break up before promptly forming two bands as side projects and the lead singer going off on a solo project. Thankfully Placebo, after ten years and four albums (plus a singles collection with bonus DVD, bonus disc of covers on their last album proper and live French DVD) have gone against the grain and have been keeping up to their promise of working on a new album since 2004.
Their latest offering, a thirteen track piece featuring Alison Mosshart from the obscure New York band The Kills as well as long-term alternative rock staple Michael Stipe of REM fame, also keeps to the more recent promise of a return to their earlier sound and going back to basics. Personally the last album was a rather fine work and the evolution of their music was healthy and interesting, however most of the fanbase felt that it lacked the Placebo feel to it and so they have made an album which genuinely plays like the first album re-recorded (but with new songs, obviously.)
What makes it obvious that it isn't a debut album (other than the sleeve artwork which follows the same fonts and photography skills as the previous two efforts) is the appearance of lead singers from two other bands. Sadly this seems to be somewhat an excuse to name drop. The Singles Collection came with a re-working of one of their songs, vocals shared by their biggest lyrical influence, David Bowie, but it was not a good experiment as the voices did not mix. On this album, however, its gone a little too far and Michael Stipe's vocals could easily be a backing singer or not there and it would make little difference. Alison Mosshart's contribution is more noticeable because her female pitch acts as a chilling, ghostly echo in the background and is much more suited, but nothing they haven't done before with an unnamed backing vocalist.
The album opens typically with an upbeat title-track in a similar vein of The Bitter End, meditating on the archetypal drug themes of the band. From there it stays upbeat for another three good tracks, all of which sound inherently Placebo (an equally good and bad thing as there is no experimentation on the album, but what they do, they do superbly), before bringing us down with a typically mellow tune that showcases the uniqueness of lead singer Brian Molko's voice. From there the album starts to descend into a more noir feel with songs that are mostly downbeat, slow-paced or dark in tone and feeling, but often are interspliced with loud choruses, interesting guitar solos or ambience creating drums.
The album finishes with the aptly titled 'Song To Say Goodbye', which follows the uncomfortably lethargic 'Follow The Cops Back Home', which also happens to be their first single inside the UK (everywhere else is exposed to the thickly-instrumented Because I Want You, which uses a piano frame that repeats subtly throughout the record). Again, this is archetypal Placebo, a minute of slow, piano led, lingering lyrics before intermittent hits of a musical barrage of their trademark sound.
If you like Placebo then buy it, it'll be exactly what you want (unless you're me who likes a bit of evolution and experimentation) and if you don't like them then, well there's no reason not to buy this because its as good as any of their other work, but far superior to their weak debut album - if their task was to redo it then they have successfully eclipsed it. Also if you buy it now you can pay a little bit more for the hardback book style casing which comes with a DVD with around an hour and a half of extra audio and visual footage, including a behind the scenes documentary and a live song with Goth-rockers The Cure - as well as a selection of aesthetic (in its traditional sense) pictures in the booklet.
