Sleeping With Ghosts

Since the band's 1996 self-titled debut, Placebo has penchant for delivering spiky, stylishly slick pop songs, in particular "Nancy Boy" and "Pure Morning." Brian Molko's femme-like vocals and androgynous appearance is matched with Stefan Olsdal and Steve

Sex and drugs and rock & roll have figured prominently in Placebo's glitterered-up, androgynous music. Sleeping with Ghosts is a little more coy than past recordings, dealing more with the torturous psychological aspects of relationships than with the exchange of body fluids. Not that there isn't any room for fetishism. "This Picture," for example, apparently dwells on sado-masochism and comes over as just the sort of trash-glam pop stomp once associated with Suede. "The Bitter End" ("Since we're feeling so anaesthatized") is a big, bruising, fatalistic rocker. At times it's hard to tell whether Brian Molko is repulsed or perversely inspired by his subject matter, although he's definitely bored with the bloody weather (the cheerless "English Summer Rain" is a subdued pop tune driven by rhythmic electronic jolts) and the waltz- time, Doors-influenced "Protect Me from What I Want" finds him praying to be delivered from his own personal temptations. Sleeping with Ghosts, however, is as much an album for slam-dancing nights out at Goth haunts as it is music for the psychiatrist’s couch. --Kevin Maidment