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Placebo: Battle For the Sun Placebo is an alternative rock band formed in London in 1994, currently consisting of Brian Molko, Stefan Olsdal and Steve Forrest. To date, they have released six studio albums, six EPs and twenty-seven singles. The band has gained a considerable amount of international recognition with hit songs such as "Nancy Boy", "Pure Morning", "You Don't Care About Us" or "Every You Every Me". In medicine, for a placebo to work, the patient has to have absolute faith in the sugar pill they’ve been given. In this case, with a prayer on their glossed lips and nail varnished fingers crossed behind their back it’s entirely possible for the mentally or physically infirm to experience all the benefits of a great band. And it’s true that in parts Battle For The Sun, Placebo’s fifth studio album, will give the open-minded/easily-fooled aspartame butterflies in the stomach, methadone iris dilation and nicotine-patch heart tremors. By far and away the best song here, Ashtray Heart is named after the band’s initial, 15-year-old incarnation, and has the closest to a ‘classic’ Placebo sound. Elsewhere, however, the synthetic, breezy Britpop of ‘Kings Of Medicine’ and the subpar Primal Scream-style Dixie-rock honking of ‘For What It’s Worth’ point to what this album’s really about: a desperately transparent copy of originality. |
