Placebo – Battle For The Sun
Filed under: Album Reviews by ChrisNo Comments »
Placebo are back, with a fresh line-up (well, a new drummer atleast) and a renewed sense of vigour. Their last studio album ‘Meds’, whilst still good, was the sound of a band losing their vitality. Parts were tired and, whilst the album still contained some great songs, it wasn’t as well received as other Placebo albums have been in the past. Even ‘Sleeping With Ghosts’ lacked something, a freshness and energy that had always helped define the bands output.
However, ‘Battle For The Sun’ seems to have clawed all of that back. It starts impressively with ‘Kitty Litter’, a riff-heavy, bassy opener that really sets out the stall for the album. This is followed by an early contender for ‘best song’, ‘Ashtray Heart’, with it’s progressive verses, chanted chorus’s and slight electonica lurking at the back of the track, it sounds typical radio-friendly indie rock, but done as well as can be. The Killers would kill for a tune like this (pun, sadly, intended).
My vote, however, for the most impressive song goes to ‘The Never-Ending Why’, which comes just after the mid-section of the album. It’s the sound of a band in full confidence – tempo changes abound, it’s a song full of surprises and just about outshines everything else on what is a really impressive album. This is followed by the equally impressive ‘Julien’, kicking off with a dirty electronic drumbeat looping behind the softly-sung vocals. It soon opens up into a solid, beat driven number containing some of the heaviest segments of the album.
There isn’t a bad song on here, and aside from a small mid-album lull, the band don’t put a foot wrong. Some songs are more memorable than most, be that because of the music, lyrics or something else, but that’s a given for most rock albums these days.
Brian Moloko’s dulcet tones will still split opinion, as it has since the band began, but the truth is it just doesn’t matter. The band know how to craft a brilliant rock song, and here they’ve got a collection of them with many more hits than misses.
Rating: 
