They allowed Tikovoi to strip back their intended electronic approach - a direction the band expected to pursue after penning the synth-heavy ‘Twenty Years’ for the Singles Collection record - to the base core of guitar, bass and drums in order to let the genius of the song writing speak for itself and rediscover the fire in Placebo’s studio-glossed bellies. “Dimitri’s idea for this record was to get us to make a first album again,” Brian explains, “to take us out of our comfort zone, to challenge us and to bring a danger back into Placebo. Rak is a bit of a time-warp studio, it hasn’t changed that much since the seventies and eighties. So you’re not making a record in a digital space-ship, everything becomes very performance based. So we went back to a very elemental side of Placebo. For example, where we’d usually go to an expensive vintage keyboard, we just went to the piano instead. I think over time we’ve developed a reputation for being quite complicated and I think we enjoyed the freedom of going back to basics on this record, we allowed space for the songwriting to shine through rather than show up how clever we were and how good we’ve gotten at using a studio. We were going for simplicity rather than elaboration.”
The result is not just a molten, souped-up raw roar of a record, but also Placebo’s most human collection to date. No longer does Molko feel the need to define himself through high fashion or S&M gimmickry - he’s an adult and a finely-honed storyteller now and he needs no knee-jerk lexicon to map out life’s deformities. Here are tales of fragile souls freaking out because they’ve forgotten to take their medication (‘Meds’), of the blear-eyed shame of the bathroom mirror in a narcotic comedown dawn (‘Cold Light Of Morning’), of “your friends who are making extremely bad lifestyle choices” (‘Song To Say Goodbye’). Here are stories - subtly unfolded - of loss, confusion, revenge, love, addiction and dependence despite, you might think, the fact that Molko should really have gotten over this sort of thing by now. “I know,” Brian chuckles. “I guess being in a rock band you don’t grow up as quickly as other people no matter what happens in your life, or maybe because you’re so used to conflict and things teetering on the edge of falling apart that sometimes you have to create that around you in order to feel alive. When you listen to the album you find a good deal of confusion and desperation. Things are never simple in Placeboworld. I think the interesting thing about the people who inhabit the songs on this album is that they’re always going through some kind of conflict, with themselves or in terms of their place in the world or in terms of dependence or addiction.”
Protection - we do a lot of it these days. Sun cream for our skin, sunglasses for our eyes, condoms for you know where - but do you remember to protect your hearing?
Click to find all the information you need to look after your hearing now so you can enjoy music for years to come
The Raft has discovered The CarbonNeutral Company
They help business, government and individuals to tackle their contribution to climate change. In addition to forestry projects, their work includes carbon emissions reduction, renewable energy and biomass schemes, as well as carbon management and risk consulting
Live 8 DVD Release Announced
