How does a decade old band stay relevant in a business where new bands continue to garner new forms of praise at a rate proportionate to the changing of the moon? That must certainly have been the question of Brian Molko and Co. as they headed into the studio to create what would be their fifth album together, Meds. One way to tackle that ever nagging detractor of time is to simply continue doing what you’ve always done, that is to follow the tried and true. Another road would be to change things up, which is the route Placebo chose to take on their last release of new material (2003’s rather cheerless Sleeping With Ghosts) with mixed results. At the time it appeared that by embracing electronic effects, the band had forgotten everything about enhancing organic affects. While some called it their most commercial release to date, you can’t help but welcome this return to the headache drumming and subdued rioting of Steve Hewitt’s frenetic drumming and Molko’s still slightly dissonant vocalizing. It’s a grate that has softened over time as the band have become more adept at combining his high pitched vocal styling with a more industrial soundscape. The overall effect is one of music that is certainly less jarring in its disparity, but it is in the record’s handling of despair that allows it both to succeed and fail in finding a fair denominator.
The record is most successful when it finds ways to overcome the moroseness of its title. Those familiar with the engine revving churn of the band’s previous work will welcome cuts like “Drag” and the surprisingly effervescent “Infra-red.” However, there is still a heavy-handed pretension in the music’s drearily psychedelic production that tends to overwhelm whatever sophistication the members have amassed over time. Tracks like “Pierrot The Clown” and “Follow The Cops Back Home,” while charged with sincerity, nevertheless end up numbing and anesthetizing. Perhaps it is Michael Stipe, featured on “Broken Promise,” who provides the finest example of the best this band can offer by enabling them to find the place where they can handle both the quiet and the loud. It’s a skill they fine tune and rework to satisfaction on “Song To Say Goodbye.” Unfortunately, the bulk of the record is so preoccupied with creating such a bleak and inescapable landscape that it doesn’t offer anything half as refreshing as that. When you listen to it, it’s almost as if you’ve just awoken from a night of heavy pilfering and recreational experimenting only to have your minutes blend with a graying befuddlement. In that sense then, Meds ends up doing exactly what it promises to do, but whether you call that a success depends on where you like waking up in the morning. |