 "See You At The Bitter End" | 2008-05-07 |
| - Reviewed By 1011 |
On "Sleeping With Ghosts" Placebo presents an interesting musical melange of androgynous post-punk glam rock with very good musicianship (and very creative use of electronic and digital instruments and effects) and exceptionally strong lyrics. The instrumental work on the album is worth listening to repeatedly, and the songs are intelligent, though generally dark.
I was very taken with the lyrics on the CD, especially "The Bitter End". While the lyrics are themselves cutting and brilliant, the vocals from Brian Molko are perfectly suited to the material and contribute markedly to the edginess of the final album. The best song on the album is, by far, "Protect Me From What I Want" which is a bleak, haunting, brilliant, and beautiful piece of music. I love the instantaneous and wholly unexpected ending they chose for the song, which reminded me of "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" from Abbey Road. It is an auditory choice that can't be made very often, but here it works perfectly (as it did for the Beatles) and counterpoints the stark and sinusoid nature of the song, while the guitar and drum interplay (and overdubs) are brilliantly executed making this my favorite Placebo song.
This is a great effort from Placebo, and I recommend it to anyone who wants a thoughtful yet edgy musical experience. |
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 "these are sad and painful songs....i pity them" | 2007-10-08 |
| - Reviewed By nukephynhighpriest |
The good songs are The Bitter End, Plasticine, and This Picture.
Threatening, malevolent, depressing, cacophonous, and sad. They've succeeded in what they set out to do. Call me a bubble-gum pop pilgrim, but Placebo are more horrible than the Velvet Underground, since heroin was a vehicle of pleasure. These guys write songs so honestly morbid, without the comic backdrop of Shock Rock or Death Metal, that it is ultimately really depressing. This is music like a Francis Bacon or Lucian Freud in their "flesh is rotting meat" periods, a florescent lit autopsy of sonic deconstruction that reduces the fun parts of rock to steel. More artful and pop-tune driven than The Swanns, but just as depressing. |
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 "Haunting and Beautiful" | 2006-10-26 |
| - Reviewed By jfizzle1 |
| I'll start out by saying that I'm biased and am a huge fan of Placebo. I love the way that the band has progressed and believe that each album that they've put out has something that someone can connect to in some way or another. I've owned this one for awhile and it is easily my favorite Placebo disk. There are dark songs, but there are also songs of hope mingling throughout. However, both the dark and the light songs rip through with an energy that is pure rock and roll and pure Placebo. Brian's vocals have so much conviction on this album it is as if he wrote part of a journal entry of his own life. Standout tracks for me have to be the songs of hope, which to me are "Sleeping with Ghosts", which insists that two who were meant to be together will be, through whatever may happen, good or bad. The other one would have to be "Plasticine", which just tells people not to be ashamed of themselves for anything. It's a shame that these two tracks never got airplay. The rest of the album is worth every penny too. Get it. |
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| "Everything you need." | 2006-09-21 |
| - Reviewed By greenerduck |
As with other reviews i've done, i'll start out saying that Placebo is my favorate band ever. And that this album came out during the height of my obsession with their music. At the time, life was in turmoil, so their previous album(Black Market Music) and this one quickly became my personal soundtrack to losing hope. I still can't listen to this album without getting some sort of intense flashback.
The album isn't without its perky points, such as the opening blast of Bulletproof Cupid, or This Picture. However a great deal of the album drives itself into that dark romantic feel that made bands like the Cure and Depeche great. In the USA, its always amazing how the band never became larger then they are, as I find them a very easy hook for friends looking for a new group.
Although if you plan to buy this album, I would recommend looking for the special edition with the covers disc included. Its almost a full album in itself and very much worth the extra price. |
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| "Ambient, soothing beauty." | 2006-05-25 |
| - Reviewed By neml575 |
A problem with the music industry today is that artists are portrayed - both by the media and through their music - as being larger than life. This image can often create a barrier to the listener when hearing their music, which stops them from connecting properly with the emotions being evoked. The beauty of "Sleeping With Ghosts" lies in Placebo's ability to remove this metaphorical barrier and expose the listener to the full impact of the emotions being evoked. Listening to "Sleeping With Ghosts" is an experience I find to be akin to talking with a close friend, in that the band make no attempt to salvage the "rock star" image amidst the tender, unpretentious beauty on offer.
Many people would be fast to label Placebo as an indie or pop-rock act, but personally I see them as a more progressive band. Their quietly hypnotic quality feels to me closely reminiscient of Pink Floyd. Part of Placebo's capability to really closely connect with the listener actually stems, I feel, from their musical simplicity. The guitar and drum lines on offer are far from being technically complex, but they do have an ambient flow to them which promotes the soothing nature of the music. Brian Molko's voice is also not what would be traditionally considered "beautiful". On the contrary it's actually quite nasal, and if it were used in the wrong way would certainly fall on the wrong side of annoying. However, in the way his vocal lines glide gracefully over the music, they too adopt a quietly ambient hue. A few piano lines thrown in here and there don't hurt either; in fact, they give the album a new layer and serve to magnify the experience.
The song structures too, play a large role in creating "Sleeping With Ghosts'" hypnotic atmosphere. Most often they start out with a normal verse/chorus/verse/chorus structure, but as the song gains momentum, this structure is abandonned for an uninterupted flow at a fixed tempo. However, this transition is managed so smoothly that you'll hardly notice it until the song is nearly finished. You'll often find Brian Molko repeating the same line over and over (not irritating at all, surprisingly). It's easy to lose yourself in the graceful, hypnotic tunes and end up drifting away. What's even more impressive is that this structure never gets old, as is is fitted to each song's individual style.
The production too, plays a small role in creating this work of art. The guitars are in no way produced to be loud or raucous and thus their soothing quality remains untainted, while the drums are just loud enough to give the music backbone, while not so loud as to be obtrusive. If any fault is to be found, I would say that Brian Molko's voice sits too highly in the mix. If his voice was a little quieter and given a bit of reverb, it could have a distant quality (akin to Garm's on Ulver's album "Bergtatt") which would have made the music even more ambient. However, in the grand scheme of things this is a small complaint.
So, if you've read this far you already know what my verdict is: "Sleeping With Ghosts" is a masterwork, possibly the best piece of alternative music to grace our world for years. It offers us something genuinely rare; a chance to sit down for 46 minutes and visit a place inside our own heads where all of our rushed, hectic lifestyle ceases to exist.
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| "So Under-rated,both band and album" | 2006-04-23 |
| - Reviewed By User: AR4SY7PXXKGGR |
| Bands come and go, this is a band that is still going but sadly never really came to the limelight they deserve. This album is my favourite from their collection, songs like "special needs" still keep their original sound, "english summer rain" is such a great song, for anyone lucky to see them live then this song will move you. I think if you're looking for an introcudtion to the band then buy their "black market music" album as its more single orientated, but if you love the band then this album is just fantastic as it adds a little bit more to their sound than before. |
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