Placebo - Sleeping With Ghosts

I am not a hardcore Placebo fan. They seem to me to be one of those bands that people discovered in high school and then fully embraced their seemingly quasi-over-the-top dramatics. The perfect music for the depressed generation that didn't feel like their pain was being addressed enough by Nirvana or Stabbing Westward. I'd heard a few of their previous singles and never had much interest. Then the band released "The Bitter End," the first single from Sleeping With Ghosts. I almost instantly became a fan after listening from start to finish. Not being the long time fan, I can't compare this to the band's old work and tell if they've grown exponentially or continue to release the same style they've always done. The album is a straight-ahead, big guitar, big hook approach. The band seems to draw from a lot of dancefloor and nu-wave influences, heard mostly in the snappy drumbeats and backing keyboards. Before you get it in your head that this is a new Orgy album, feel safe in knowing that this is a ROCK record - the guitars are up front and being used properly. Finding yourself enjoying the musical portion of Sleeping With Ghosts is a pretty safe bet if you're a fan of any rock that exists on the edge of mainstream success and popular indie (My Vitriol, Self, Creeper Lagoon, Dredg, etc.). However, the vocals and lyrics may be a different story entirely. Have no doubt, Brian Moloko's voice is as nasally as can be. The lyrics pretty much stick to the conceptual area of lost lovers ("Sleeping With Ghosts"), bitter lovers ("The Bitter End"), forgotten love ("Special Needs"), hateful breakups ("Second Sight"), and... well... you get the point. Fortunately, the vocals fit this sort of desperate yearning and bitterness perfectly. If you wrote Placebo off some time ago as "that crybaby band with the weird lead singer" give them another chance on Sleeping With Ghosts. The album kind of drawls off near the end into slower songs, but without the change in tempo you'd forget to appreciate the truly rocking stuff in the first half. [www.placebo.co.uk]