Oh for first impressions to be forbidden. Or easily reversible. Of course this album suffers immeasurably from the weight of what has come before. Or what hasn’t. The last absolutely essential Placebo album was their ‘96 debut after all. And it’s unfortunate but impossible to listen to a single word or melody uttered mechanically from those cold poisonous urchin lips of his without a retched shiver miscarrying down your spine and immediately triggering your most tensed defences. Or at least without making wild presumptions, as that last sentence did. Or may have done. Pop music, generic noises, rock and roll, it’s all a big mass of contradiction and front. To be a character is probably both your biggest strength and weakness. But it’s an open verdict as to whether Brian Molko is a character or just a vile attempt at one. But to have split opinion like that, job done I suppose. And what else are Manics fans to do exactly on their days off?
All of which makes approaching this album with an open mind kind of like sidling up to George Bush with an IQ test. And a pen for him to fill it out himself. And yes, of course that overshadows the moments of poetry when they do make themselves temporarily apparent, the main looped refrain of ‘English Summer Rain’ for instance. But so cold and uncomfortable to the touch are most of the utterances that there’s not even the option to form any lasting emotional bond with them. As if emotion even exists in this featureless sexual-predator inhabited cityscape where everyone can serve a physical purpose but are devoid of any real reason. But then maybe it can, from a reverse psychology angle maybe all he wants is a cuddle? Well, if anyone feels up to the task…
Primary criminal charge this time round is trying to inject an incompatible zeitgeist-seizing electronic undercurrent into their main vein without a licence, working with producer Jim Abbiss (UNKLE, DJ Shadow). While they may have made it work back on ‘Pure Morning’, The Faint they ain’t and the body just rejects it. ‘Something Rotten’ is, and wants to be Massive Attack’s ‘Karma Coma’. It isn’t. ‘I’ll Be Yours’, regardless of its weak metaphors, isn’t worthy of being wiped off Trent Reznor’s boot. And when they try and break away from all that at the end on ‘Centrefolds’, a piano led lament (an idea executed brilliantly on live reworkings of ‘Teenage Angst’), it’s turned into a sorry march by all the previously listed problems. And the stale instrumental intro ‘Bulletproof Cupid’ is barely worth mentioning. Sometimes you should learn to stick with those first impressions, yeah?