Placebo
Meds

THE REVIEW

Fifth album for this band that continues its streak of ups and downs.

While the self-titled 'Placebo' and 'Black Market Music' were good albums with some beautiful ideas, the group then faltered with 'Sleeping With Ghosts', an album that we could define as very predictable since it was limited to repeating the fixed pattern we already knew, with some absolutely pointless tracks.

This new 'Meds' is halfway between the band's old glories and that half-failure that I consider to be their penultimate work. Among electronics, re-proposing their old style and some innovation (including a few duets), we find an album only for the die-hard fans of the group, which offers absolutely nothing new to those who have already heard all of Placebo's past productions.

Let's see... the album opens with Meds, a song that immediately feels familiar, with the classic acidic riffs of Placebo, and a duet with VV from the Kills; the album continues with a song lacking identity, Infra-Red, a track with some electronic hints but too anonymous even for the band's standards; Drag, like Meds, is the classic Placebo track, with the classic vocal scales and the same sounds they have always flaunted - nothing particular, even regarding the lyrics; moving on to Space Monkey, a more introspective song dominated by elements of electronic experimentation and vocal effects; followed by Follow The Cops Back Home, a song with already calmer tones, but is yet another piece without anything new, even though it turns out to be the most pleasant so far.

Post Blue almost seems like a Linkin' Park track, not losing its effectiveness immediately thanks to Molko's voice, which gives some vigor to a musically poor-sounding piece; Because I Want You... yet another Placebo piece, very commercial that I probably see as a single despite the fake edginess that Placebo wants to pretend to have; Blind, built on an electronic base that I would define as elementary, is so far the slowest song, I would say it’s the classic serenade we find on every album - interesting to a certain extent.
We move on to a true ballad without an electric guitar, where Molko ventures into a rather melodic use of his voice, with a half-success, it is Pierrot the Clown; followed by a duet that on paper could be interesting (sings with Molko, Stipe from R.E.M.), which immediately becomes the classic Placebo song that we already know by heart - Broken Promise, a song where the duet between the two is not even that original, with the two often covering each other; One of A Kind, perhaps the only piece a bit alternative so far, in the long run ends up sounding like a new Depeche Mode song, with a distortion to which I would have honestly preferred something lighter.

In The Cold Light of the Morning, introduced by a beautiful synth melody that immediately conveys the introspective tones of the track, is a nearly Trip-Hop piece, quite interesting compared to many other songs on the album; Song to Say Goodbye, a song that seems placed precisely at the end of the album to conclude it in its mediocrity; nothing new this time either.

The album is in the end the classic album that almost all bands that want to re-propose themselves without changing anything is: a search to continue without changing the profile that ends in boredom and repetition, in the already-heard; the album is therefore recommended only to the die-hard fans, but certainly to no one who wants to listen to Placebo from scratch.