Review of Placebo's "Never Let Me Go"
Better late than never, since the album got released a year ago (March '22).
Placebo and Me
Placebo is one of those British bands which I've been listening to since I'm a teenager - I discovered them with their 2nd album "Without You I'm Nothing" in 1998.
I have not followed or listened intensely to all of their albums though: I really only recall Sleeping with Ghosts and Loud Like Love.
I still remember buying and listening to:
- Without You I'm Nothing, featuring David Bowie,
- and more generally the whole Without You I'm Nothing album (Pure Morning, The Crawl, Every You Every Me, My Sweet Prince, Burger Queen),
- "Protège Moi", sang in French by Brian, which was the French version of "Protect Me from What I Want"
The Album
I completely missed this new album, and discovered only recently (November '22) the release, thanks to Spotify's recommandations - where "Happy Birthday in the Sky" was spotlighted.
Length
I listened to Never Let Me Go a lot, and thought it was really short - I kept hearing again "Forever Chemicals" (the album's first song), and indeed the album lenght is less than an hour: 57 min 35 sec.
First listening
I really got hooked when listening to the album - each song is different and yet they complete each other in my opinion.
Songs standing out
- Fix Yourself
- the song starts with a strong bass which makes me have goose bumps every time
- very powerful lyrics - "No Way / I won't deal / Go fuck yourselves / Don't tell me how to feel"
- Happy Birthday in the Sky
- Surrounded by Spies
- Beautiful James
- Sad White Reggae
- Forever Chemicals
- first song of the album, very strong guitars
- and those lyrics! - "with friends like you, who needs enemies?"
- and the final chorus! "it's all good when nothing matters / it's all good when no one cares"...
Gig
I have not seen Placebo live yet, and I wanted to see whether there was a chance to see them in 2023.
The band had announced on Twitter that Brian had to take some rest as he recently "lost" his voice and needs to be cautious if he wants to avoid permanent damages.
It seems to be better, since there are now additional gigs scheduled.
Sadly there's nothing planned soon for France.
I just booked a ticket for their concert in Nîmes (South of France) in July 2023!
Of course I'll write a review of that gig once it's over, but I'm super excited to see them live!
Wrap Up
I know it's been a year since Never Let Me Go got released, but I've been listening it non stop for the past 4 months, I really like it and can't wait to see how Placebo performs it live.
Tags: Music