Placebo - 'Sleeping With Ghosts' (Hut)
4/5
By: Toby L
Molko-ordinated terror-pop at its most surreal and cutting, Placebo's 'Sleeping With Ghosts' could make for the band's most daringly tight and chilling work to date.
It hasn't been easy a progression, however. Commonly ridiculed for their nigh-on Goth-theatrics and an arrestingly angular form of songwriting that hasn't mutated far beyond its original blueprint from their self-titled debut-LP, it's admirable that the group have taken preference towards a firmer, bass-pulsating series of compositions that showcase the US-UK-Swede trio at their most richly morbid and contemplative.
And if staying ahead of the game, beating the contemporaries, is also a priority, then they're succeeding in their task. For 'Sleeping With Ghosts' is the work of a band evaluating the particularly rewarding dynamics and very aesthetic of its sound, and working hand-in-hand with faithful production-assistance from Jim Abiss to create the most stripped-down and intricate body of compositions they've to date mustered. None of the prior pretension, nor the glitter-streamed tears of a band attempting to replicate their own past in a not-so-persuasively 'bold' change of direction.
It opens just as you'd not anticipate - a full, charging instrumental, 'Bulletproof Cupid', a track soon followed by the quite enchanting keyboard shimmer of 'This Picture' and acoustic-based reminisces of the title-track. You'd become apprehensive that our favourite global-spanning threesome were getting a bit girly on us, but recent single 'The Bitter End' thunders through the fold and tears up the stronger aspects of a stealthy back-catalogue and defiantly lifts a nail-varnish stained middle-finger.
Nothing proves quite so immediately fierce afterwards, but with the booming, haunting minimalism of 'Something Rotten' - helpfully supplemented by some of Abiss' electronically-inclined synths and atmospherics - or a strongly drum-driven 'I'll Be Yours', it's quite apparent that Placebo's vendetta-manifesto of their recent resurgence is to subtly surprise and elevate expectations. Just what all great bands should strive towards fulfilling.
Artists in this article: Placebo
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