Placebo’s Never Let Me Go Is A Nostalgic, Yet Completely New Musical Journey

“I’m as Psychologically brutalized by the last few years, as is anybody who has a heart enough to care.”

After nearly a decade, Placebo is gearing up to release the follow-up to 2013’s Loud Like Love. The title Never Let Me Go can be interpreted in many ways, and listening throughout the 13 track Placebo and Adam Noble produced record, there’s no shortage of emotional substance.

The eighth studio album from duo Brian Molko and Stefan Olsdal is as always very personal but this time around it is also coming out in a world which has changed human psychology between a pandemic, depression, racial injustice, and so on. Whether anyone wants to admit it or not, we are not the same as we were during Loud Like Love and neither are they. But this Placebo album isn’t about Covid-19, rather it touches on the human condition leading up to it and what we may experience after it.

In Molko’s own words “I’m as Psychologically brutalized by the last few years, as is anybody who has a heart enough to care.”

As for Never Let Me Go Molko explains, “I wanted to capture the confusion of what it’s like to be alive today, the feeling of being lost, always walking in a labyrinth, continuously being overwhelmed by information and opinions.”

For fans of Placebo, Never Let Me Go will feel nostalgic and even familiar at times, however, it’s brand new and a testament to their musical abilities and creativeness. It’s a record that you can clearly hear was written their way and by their rules.

For me, as a long-time fan and listener of Placebo, the music has always taken me to new places. I can remember listening to songs like “Sleeping With Ghost” and being transported to a European cafe, people watching as humanity rushes through their lives, or a song like 2007’s “Song To Say Goodbye” on a train going cross-country wanting to escape everything I knew. Placebo’s music has always to me been about escaping and visualization.

But before this record could become a reality, in order for you to understand why it sounds how it does and how Placebo got here, you have to turn back to 2016’s A Place For Us To Dream which propelled Brian and Stefan into a greatest hits tour all around the globe. The tour connected them on a commercial best of collection which quickly became a little too much for the duo.

“I thought it all got a little bit too commercial, around that period,” Brian reflects on today.

“The whole enterprise was commercial, rather than artistic one, and I guess we reacted against that.”

Stefan adds, “It was actually like this grueling five-year tour which went from the last album being released (2013’s Loud Like Love) into the greatest hits. It kind of went on and on, and it was sucking the life out of me. I didn’t have a lot of enthusiasm left for the band, because I think I was just drained. The thought of doing it again filled me with dread.”

So this time, the band was ready to avoid boredom at all costs and do things completely backward starting the album process this time with the cover art, track titles, songwriting, etc.

And Never Let Me Go begins…

The album’s first track “Forever Chemicals” starts with not from this planet sounding loops, and lyrics like “And with friends like you, who needs enemies?” It’s very Placebo, but fresh, rejuvenated, classic but inspiringly beautiful all at once.

The album’s first single “Beautiful James” starts with the lyrics “Bring me back to life, Never Let me go,” is very cinematically rock-driven, sonically unique and beautiful, and completely up to each listener’s own interpretation. Is it a love song? Is it a song of betrayal? You decide for yourself. As with all Placebo songs for Brian Molko, “It remains imperative that each listener discovers their own personal story within our songs – I really don’t want to tell anyone how to feel”.

It’s that thought process towards the writing that has kept fans connected for the last seven albums and soon to be this eighth record.

Social issues are quite present throughout Never Let Me Go, and how could they not be. From the album’s start in 2018 all the way through 2020’s global pandemic, we’ve struggled with issues of bullying, social injustice, racism, government interruption, depression, anxiety, and loneliness never before felt as it was during lockdowns. The past few years were unprecedented and you hear that on songs like “Hugz” which is one of the more heavy driving tracks on the album which I can only imagine speaks to the imposter syndrome possibly caused by the lockdowns.

Songs like “Surrounded By Spies” allude to the ever-growing loss of personal privacy both on and offline while “Try Better Next Time” feels like a reminder of our ever constant abuse of the earth and our ego-driven expectation that mother nature won’t fight back.

“Happy Birthday In The Sky” starts with strumming and an easy-going drum beat. Molko’s vocals are strong and brilliantly executed allowing the listener to wash away in a dream state. The song is equally beautiful and painful. For me, I related it to my sister who passed away in 2017 from a drug overdose. The lyric “I want my medicine” relates to me maybe what her thought process was and “Happy Birthday In The Sky” feels like the way I would express my sadness, but also my forgiveness.

“The Prodigal” begins with a gorgeous and enchanting string arrangement that carries through various parts of the song. It’s one of my favorite songs on the album because it sounds like what I can only imagine HOPE would sound like. It feels like a rebirth. “I leave this world to you all.” “(I’ll Set You Free) I am Alive.”

“Sad White Reggae” is an instant goth synth-driven classic, super fun, and upbeat as with the track “Twin Demons” which is classic infectious Placebo. “Chemtrails” is Molko’s song about escape, change, and invisibility. It has the full drum loop, a classic 90s grunge riff, and a little bit of synth to pep up the background.

The tail end of the album finds Placebo bringing the tempo way down for “This is what you wanted” which sort of gave me a “Running up that hill” vibe. It blended nicely with the also slower more dramatic “Went Missing” with Molko’s vocals almost written in a spoken word form over haunting background noise. The album ends with the angsty “Fix Yourself” doing a delicate dance around a political, cancel culture. F**k You! “Go fix yourself instead of someone else.”

There are subtle hints of the band’s classic albums. Particularly for my ears it was Without You I’m Nothing and a little sprinkle of 2007’s Meds but overall Never Let Me Go is the follow-up to Loud Like Love and all those other records that came before it. But Never Let Me Go stands alone and cements itself as the next beautiful piece of artwork the duo has created amongst turmoil both internally and in our world. Never Let Me Go serves as some of the band’s best work to date. It also opens the floodgates for the band’s future albums as this isn’t a departure from the Placebo we know and love but rather the pathway for the band’s bright future.