Album Review

Placebo – Battle For The Sun

• 9th Jun 2009

The songs on this sixth studio effort are very much par for the course Placebo joints; driven, brief, the odd killer chorus and Molko’s Marmite whiny vocals. If you like the Placebo we’ve become accustomed to over the last decade and a half, you’ll more than likely like this record fine. On the downside, of course, there’s nothing novel, no new direction and no real risks.

But more on the songs; the results are somewhat mixed. The pick of the bunch, the title track, a relative epic at 5:33, starts nice and simple with its staccato guitar riff and Molko’s moody vocals, gathering steam and building towards a big shiny chorus bestowed with keys, strings and Molko hitting the right notes in a histrionic manner, it looks sure to become a highlight of the band’s always-popular festival appearances this summer. I have only nice things to say, too about the anthemic likes of ‘Ashtray Heart’ and ‘The Never Ending Why’. Much of the rest of the album though, is quite forgettable, not terrible, never terrible, just shoulder-shrugging. That’s the trouble with Placebo’s limited stylistic range; with nothing to set the tracks apart bar quality, the lesser songs sometimes merge into filler. Molko and co seem content not to try to fix what isn’t broken, even if it does sometimes grate a little.