Guildenstern's Full Review: Sleeping With Ghosts by Placebo (Pop)
Just the other day, Brian Molko, leader of Placebo, was interviewed on British television by comedian/chat-show host/music enthusiast Jonathan Ross, who told a highly amused Molko that he thought the title for Placebo’s fourth full length album was sleeping with goats, rather than the correct ghosts. Mirth aside, the album bears a closer resemblance to four legged grazing cattle than to the haunting feeling evoked by the cover art. It’s not to say it’s a bad album. But Brian Molko can do better. Much better.
Of course, the press have latched on to Placebo’s weakest effort to date as an excuse to tell us that of course they always knew the band were overrated and a bit rubbish. I hate reviewers who do that. They think they’re so clever, but they’d be the first to tell us that they knew Molko had something special to say all along had this been a magnificent album akin to Without You I’m Nothing. But it isn’t, and so they tell us that Placebo aren’t all that exciting and that we should all know better. Well screw that. Placebo released two of the most powerful, melodic, biting albums of the late 90’s, and this review won’t tell you that the band are rubbish, because they’re one of Britain’s best exports in recent years. That doesn’t stop this from being a middling album though.
The only song I heard before picking up the album was the instrumental opener, Bulletproof cupid, as I allowed the first single Bitter end to pass me by… there comes a time when you can clutter your room with too many singles. Now, the opener is oddly enough, the hardest rocker on the album, but sounds like a good idea taken only half-way to its conclusion. It’s a bizarre way of opening their first album in three years, with a song that actually sounds nothing like the rest of the album – rockers are thin on the ground on an album that increasingly looks inwards on itself as it progresses, and to open without Molko’s vocals is an interesting idea. However, clocking in at just over minutes, it feels unnecessary, unlike the epic suites that appear as hidden tracks on their first two albums, each one magnificent in its own right. But even more confusingly, the album never really heads towards all out rock.
English summer rain is an undoubted highlight, with some excellently underproduced drum rhythms and interspersed electronic elements. The press have also condemned the band for experimenting with electronics calling it an overused idea and unoriginal – what they overlook is that the band have always dabbled with electronic music, punching a hole straight through their futile little argument. Honestly, if they don’t like it, just say so, don’t be so stupidly pedantic about it. I love Placebo, and I’m not ashamed of it. But this album doesn’t do it for me. But back to the track in hand, it has a very catchy little beat, and it buzzes along with a charmingly effective pop hook.
This picture is one of the few rockers on the album, and even then, it has nothing on the walls of sound of Special K or much less Scared of girls. Molko seems to be undecidedly courting a more mainstream audience, but his nods at Depeche Mode throughout the album seem self-defeating – nothing about this album is commercial or in fashion, although it is a strangely self-conscious effort. Another good song, but they sound oddly muted, something which the awful murky production of the album doesn’t help. They even start to hover dangerously close to Muse territory on this album, but despite Jim Abbiss’ best efforts to reduce the band to a footnote, Molko is too clever by half and the song soars away.
Which is something you can’t say of the title track itself, Sleeping with ghosts. By this point, it’s totally unclear what direction Molko is taking the band. Admittedly, 2000’s Black Market Music hinted at an acoustic and more traditional side to the band, which is accentuated at first in this song. But the electronics of the album suddenly take over the chorus, shattering the acoustic buzz of the song, but not replacing it with a similarly forceful melody. The result is curiously non-committal, not earning the epithets of soaring haunting melodies which so much of their previous albums merited. Again, not bad, but not special.
Obviously, The bitter end is a spectacular pop-rocker, closer to the sharper cleaner chords of Slave to the wage than the more bitter grunge-influenced rockers of yore – in fact, this whole facet of the band has been utterly exiled from their fourth outing. The song in question, and lead single, is excellent, pulsating, driving, typical Molko hit-machine at work, with the simplest little upwards and downwards chord progressions managing to sound indescribably powerful in their striking simplicity. Molko does enjoy doing that, overlaying upwards and downwards scales and creating intricate little webs of utterly elemental musical difficulty. This is what he is good at, but single number two from this album will be hard to find.
Something rotten finds Molko trying to get to grips with Reznor and Yorke style studio noodling, distorting and echoing his voice, ruining the one constant in the band’s sound. Placebo without Molko’s voice are only half the band, as they lack the commitment and power that his bruised voice communicates. Plasticine, thankfully redirects the band to rock, but there is no force to the guitars, as all hint of feedback has been purged from the sound – rendering Molko’s guitars tinny. But not even the songwriting is up to par on this one, leaving it flailing. Special needs allows Molko back to picking out his excellent guitar riff progressions and constructing saddened ballads for the sick and the lonely. Even the lyrics on this one seem to veer towards being preachy, asking us to remember the less able, but without that slight twinge of irony and sexual indeterminacy that characterises past glories.
And on it goes. I’ll be yours follows the effort of Special needs, but is only half as interesting, and seems to travel only a very short distance musically. Second sight starts with promisingly thudding drums, and bursts into an acceptable rocker, but not even close to the surging bass wonder of The Bitter end. Which reminds me, the other musicians, Stefan Olsdal and Steve Hewitt are still top of their game, making otherwise unpalatable songs worth hearing for the craft alone. Protect me from what I want is a case in point, where the performances outstrip the material entirely. Fortunately, closer Centrefolds could be one of the most haunting compositions the band have ever come up with, and is certainly the strongest song on this album along with The bitter end. Once again, a simple series of descending piano notes create a strikingly effective atmosphere, one of intense sadness and depression that made me feel 19 again, listening to their debut for the first time. Molko has still got it, and this magnificent gem of a closer is worth the expense if nothing else is.
Besides, let me clear. This is not a bad album. But Placebo are better than this, as the high points demonstrate. The best thing they can do is to ditch their latest producer who does their sound few favours, and go back to rocking out a bit. Most annoyingly, this album does not feature a hidden track, which was becoming something of a constant on their albums, and had been without exception outstanding. There is just something bizarrely compromising about the album, as if from the outset its apologising for itself. But anyway, I still believe in you Brian.
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