Meds – and how very Placebo is that, an even split between Elizabeth Wurtzel and Kurt Cobain – is their fifth album, and the sound of a band straining to slip their own skin.
With little or no fuss, Placebo still somehow manage to shift hundreds of thousands of records and to pack venues across Europe. Just as with 2003’s Sleeping With Ghosts LP, ‘Because I Want You’ is far better than we’d expect.
The track is bolstered by a chorus just as memorable as ‘Nancy Boy’ or ‘Bruise Pristine’. Clearly frontman Brian Molko has lost neither his sneer nor his turn of phrase. The angst which made them famous is still present and just as palpable as before. On this evidence, you wouldn’t rule out a comeback.
He s so vain, but brian molko is also one of the most astute men in rock n roll. Having put his hedonistic days behind him honest! the placebo mainman talks to stuart clark about martyrdom, maturity and Marilyn Manson.
Malahide’s DIRECTOR may not be any kind of tabloid headline generators, but with an accomplished second album produced by Pumpkins and Placebo veteran Brad Wood in the bag, they’re confident enough to let the music make the fuss.
Meds is their fifth album, and the sound of a band straining to slip their own skin. They’ve got a whole new set of musical ordinances going on (the sound is indisputably lush and muscular in a post-industrial kinda way) but still only two tunes: the one that throbs with dum-dum basslines and Sonic guitar swathes, and the slow spacey one with the Joy Division keyboard washes and heavy delay.
placebo have probably garnered more column inches in the British press for frontman
brian molko s effeminate appearance than for their music.
colm o hare meets the men who want to be a band that parents hate .
While the band have the requisite break neck speed and manic energy the songs are a bit lacking and they ultimately come across (to these ears) like a less talented Placebo.
ONE OF the most widely held mis-conceptions about the rock 'n' roll business is that the moment you scrawl your 'X' on a contract, you can forget all this 'suffering for your art' nonsense and move into an elegant country retreat where snorting showbiz sherbet and indulging in all manner of perverted sexual practices is the order of the day.
Having spent Easter Sunday contemplating what complete bastards the British are, we thought you might like to peruse the range of IRA action figures that are available at www.canfodmins.com/gallery.htm
The Cronin Brothers have come a long way with their group The Aftermath since leaving Longford to make their fortune. With friends like the Kaiser Chiefs and fans like Chris Moyles, they’re on the brink of making it big.
A decade of
decadence down the line, and Limerick popsters the hitchers show no signs of going away. Frontman
niall quinn yes, really talks to Kevin Barry.
The Adidas Wellness Centre in Stockport is a state of the art facility, in which your entire physical condition is tested and assessed. So how would Hotpress’ Carol O’Hanlon stand up to the scrutiny – not to mention the endurance test through which she would be put?
All over Ireland, at any time of the day or night, hundreds of musicians are at work in recording studios, getting their sounds down for your delectation. So which are the trailblazing facilities? COLM O HARE reports.
Flying winger Denis Hickie is one of Ireland and Leinster's leading stars. But when he takes off his boots, it's music he turns to for inspiration – from Nick Drake, through Mark Lanegan and Hem to Athlete (but of course!). Interview by Steve Cummins. Photography by Cathal Dawson
In a rare interview, DJ, Sabres Of Paradise mainman and all-round geezer andrew weatherall tells stuart clark about why he won t be working with Primal Scream again, comes clean about his Van Morrison obsession, and does his best not to slag off Kula Shaker and Mansun.
Few bands have managed to divide
critical opinion quite so spectacularly as Kula Shaker. Mystic musical saviours to some, prog rock nightmares to others, the one thing that everybody s agreed on is that mainman Crispian Mills gives exceedingly good quote. Interview and
periodic bewilderment:
Stuart Clark
Psychic and physical disintegration! Quacks, pulsars and Marshall amps! The sound of the end of space and time! And, oh yes, silly song titles too! Welcome to the world of WAYNE COYNE and The Flaming Lips. Interview: Peter Murphy.
JJ 72 have been hailed by some critics as the finest thing to come out of Ireland since U2 - and no wonder. With a hugely impressive debut album under their collective belt, the expectations are even higher for the follow-up, I To Sky. They share with their illustrious predecessors a predilection for intense songs of spiritual yearning - and a desire to make music that truly stands the test of time. But is it rock'n'roll?
It’s hard to think of two artists less alike than MUNDY and LAURA IZIBOR. But they do have one thing in common: they’re Irish outsiders who have overcome challenging circumstances and, with new albums under their belts, are set to sweep all before them in 2009.
Not content with taking care of special guest duties as U2 wend their way around South America, Franz Ferdinand have contributed a version of ‘A Song For Sorry Angels’ to a Serge Gainsbourg tribute album.
Not content with taking care of special guest duties as U2 wend their way around South America, Franz Ferdinand have contributed a version of ‘A Song For Sorry Angels’ to a Serge Gainsbourg tribute album.
The former Bowie backing singer and occasional member of The Cardigans is an award-winning solo star in her native Canada, but given her frequent visits here she seems doggedly determined to break out on this side of the pond. Following her eclectic take on a bunch of Irish classics on last year’s Songs Of Love And Death, she wastes little time in returning with this album of her own material recorded on and off over the past three years.
Some of you will doubtless remember Rollerskate Skinny, who released a bone-fide Irish classic in Horsedrawn Wishes all of ten years ago. The band’s vocalist/guitarist Ken Griffin relocated to the US and now fronts this Brooklyn-based quartet who formed in 2004, when he teamed up with Philadelphia psych-poppers, Aspera. With major label backing they’re being tipped for big things across the water.
There are some pretty sonic snippets throughout the evening, but none seem to be stretched over the course of a full track, instead becoming lost in a hurricane of furiously-pounded electric guitar.
Of all the mooted heirs to the U.S Garage throne of The Strokes, it would have taken a scarily prescient punter (or a fundamentalist goth) to have put money on the accession of Interpol.
Natural aphrodisiacs can help to spice up your sex life – or so the manufacturers claim. But do they work? We thought there was only one way to find out.
Our culture still hasn’t figured out how to deal with mortality, and experiments with a bewildering range of panaceas. But an encounter with death can be invigorating.
THE CRITICS PANEL WHO VOTED FOR THE TOP 30 ALBUMS AND SINGLES OF THE YEAR ARE AS FOLLOWS: BILL GRAHAM, LIAM FAY, GEORGE BYRNE, STUART CLARK, LORRAINE FREENEY, TARA McCARTHY, GERRY McGOVERN, NEIL McCORMICK, DERMOT STOKES, OLIVER P. SWEENEY, SIOBHAN LONG, STEVE AVERILL, ANDY DARLINGTON, COLM O’HARE, JOE JACKSON, HELENA MULKERNS, DAN OGGLY, CATHY DILLON, NIALL CRUMLISH, OLAF TYARANSEN, PATRICK BRENNAN, JACKIE HAYDEN AND NIALL STOKES.
Suddenly, our sex columnist was forced to do without her favourite ‘tipple’. The experience made her think again about the nature of sexual desire – and why some girls want it more than others…
