“As great masters in cataloguing the human condition, Placebo’s unique way of examining both its flaws and beauty finds fertile ground in 2021. Crawling out of the pandemic into a landscape of intolerance, division, tech-saturation and imminent eco-catastrophe, theirs is a voice that has rarely felt more significant to contemporary discourse, and more appropriate to sing these stories to the world. Within the magnetic slow-burn of new track “Surrounded By Spies” no punches are pulled in confronting the erosion of civil liberties, as Brian Molko’s deft lyrical delivery is married to a creeping sense of claustrophobia that fittingly makes the walls feel as though they are closing in from all around.
Placebo released a new track called ‘Surrounded By Spies’.The duo – comprised of Brian Molko and Stefan Olsdal – recently returned with their first single in five years, ‘Beautiful James’. It served as a taste of the group’s forthcoming eighth album, the follow-up to 2013’s ‘Loud Like Love’.
Taking to social media Placebo confirmed that they’ll share another new song this month. ‘Surrounded By Spies’. “We had a lot of get-up-and-go, and then everything that happened, happened, so everything is sort of delayed by about two years now,” he said.
“I know it was frustrating for the fans. It was certainly very frustrating for us as well, the interminable wait to put out new music, but at least it was there. We knew we had it.”
Molko comments: “I began writing the lyrics when I discovered my neighbours were spying on me on behalf of parties with a nefarious agenda. I then began to ponder the countless ways in which our privacy has been eroded and stolen since the introduction of worldwide CCTV cameras that now employ racist facial recognition technologies; the rise of the internet and the cell-phone, which has turned practically every user into a paparazzo and spectators in their own lives, and how we have mostly all offered up personal information to enormous multinationals whose sole intent is to exploit us.”
The singer also said that Placebo had switched up their writing process this time around in an effort to “not make it easy on ourselves”.
“I have what I would describe as a boredom problem,” Molko explained. “Stefan [Olsdal, bassist and guitarist] has often said that he’s never met anyone with a lower boredom threshold than myself – and that really influences and informs the way that we work.”
A release date for Placebo’s new forthcoming album ‘Never Let Me Go’ – out March 25th, 2022.
The Fat Angel Sings 