Placebo – Never Let Me Go (Red Vinyl - 2xLP)

How long does a band actually have to have been gone for its album to be called a comeback album? In the case of the new Placebo record, the term definitely applies. With "Never Let Me Go," the British alternative rock icons are releasing their first new material since 2013's "Loud Like Love" in 2022 and thus in nine years.

"Never Let Me Go" is Placebo's eighth studio work, but the first that Brian Molko (vocals, guitar, bass, keyboard) and Stefan Olsdal (bass, guitar, keyboard, backing vocals) recorded as a duo. Drummer Steve Forrest had left the band in 2015 to focus on his solo career.

The recordings took place between 2019 and 2021. However, Molko says most of it was ready before the pandemic hit in early 2020: "We had a lot planned, and then what happened, so now everything is delayed by about two years. I know it was frustrating for the fans. It was certainly very frustrating for us as well, the never-ending wait for new music, but at least it was there. We knew we had it," says the singer.

13 songs finally made it onto "Never Let Me Go". The band released two of them already in 2021: "Beautiful James" was released on September 16, "Surrounded By Spies" on November 9.

The latter is about being spied on, about the "erosion of civil liberties". Molko on songwriting: "I used the cut-up technique invented by William S. Burroughs and popularized by David Bowie in a modern song. It's a true story told through the lens of paranoia, disgust with the values of modern society, and idolization of surveillance capitalism. The narrator is at the end of his rope, hopeless and terrified, in complete opposition to our newfound progress and the god of money."