Placebo
Never Let Me Go

Getting lost, only to find oneself again and change the game.

This is what happened to Placebo, a band always at the mercy of their tumultuous journey, which seven years ago experienced yet another seismic shock with the departure of their third drummer in succession, Steve Forrest. An album not completely on target and received tepidly ("Loud Like Love", released nine years ago) and an endless tour supporting the compilation "A Place For Us To Dream" seemed to have put a tombstone on the hypothetical future of the now British duo.

Repeatedly performing, for months, the usual hits from the band's now considerable discography had led Molko and Olsdal to no longer recognize a precise identity within the project. Thus came the declarations about a new album that would be 'an authentic commercial suicide,' and then a long silence. Until the two found themselves again and discovered new motivations through a simple idea: why not deconstruct the composition process, and rebuild it in reverse?

Thus, the duo started again from a title, "Never Let Me Go," and a cover, as well as a handful of titles: Molko proposes one, Olsdal starts working on it, and so the new songs are born, some of which are even reconsidered and reworked 'taking advantage' of the pandemic. The result is a real artistic rebirth for Placebo, never so focused since the days of Meds and proud parents of an album that represents a true new beginning.

In terms of sound, there are no great innovations: the guiding figures are always the same (Bowie, Pumpkins, Nirvana, Pixies, Depeche Mode). What's evident, perhaps, is a new and constant use of the synth, well-present throughout almost all the pieces offered (thirteen, co-produced by the band together with Adam Noble) and structurally fundamental in the major single "Beautiful James," certainly the most commercial track on the album. But perhaps the opener "Forever Chemicals" sets the coordinates, with an aspiration halfway between Nine Inch Nails and Depeche Mode, heralded by a sinister distorted harp placed at the beginning.

At times, even a scratch long absent returns in Molko's performance, more or less since some episodes of Meds ("Hugz", "Twin Demons" – which wouldn't have looked out of place in "Black Market Music" – the Nirvana-like "Chemtrails"), and we even go back to the origins with the third single "Try Better Next Time" (so catchy it takes us back to '98 and that absolute milestone "Without You I'm Nothing"). In contrast, where the new advances, it's a pleasure to hear a poppish "The Prodigal," clearly inspired by "Eleanor Rigby," and a "Sad White Reggae" that is the legitimate offspring of the old "Taste In Men," only in a more Depeche-like key.

The other two singles "Happy Birthday In The Sky" and "Surrounded By Spies" recover the darker side of Molko's writing, the former in a more canonically alt-rock form, the latter with a frenetic and more "experimental" rhythm, a gloom then recovered in a slower and more reflective final triptych that sublimates a beautiful album, rightfully among the most beautiful rock albums of this first quarter of 2022.

Best track: Happy Birthday In The Sky