Placebo - Meds (US Bonus Tracks) (2007)

One of the most memorable concerts I've ever been to was a Placebo show-- mostly because the stage caught fire during the first song. The band never broke stride on the glam Zeppelin stomp of "Pure Morning", though-- Brian Molko just changed the song's lyrics from "A friend in need is a friend indeed/ A friend who bleeds is better" to "A friend in need is a friend indeed/ A friend with a fire extinguisher is better" as the staff of Boston's Avalon raced to put out the flames.

Molko's response to the potential disaster was revealing in a few ways: It put his under-appreciated sense of humor on full display, but it also handily illustrated the interchangeability of his lyrics-- the fire extinguisher line actually sounded OK. He's made a career (and a pretty successful one at that, with more than six million albums sold worldwide) out of milking a specific libertine personality. If you're offended by music that seems calculated, take a pass on these guys-- Molko's mix of arm's-length sleaze, studied sexual ambiguity, casual drug references, and sad-boy romantic pining is so precise you could design an algorithm around it.

What Placebo do well is deliver some pretty good glam and grunge-influenced hard rock. Molko sells his lyrics with a high, nasal voice that lends a calm sadness to lines few other singers could get away with. On their latest album, Meds, the arrangements and recordings are so airtight you could suffocate in them, with the distortion strictly compressed and neatly controlled-- everything on the beat and vocal guest spots by Michael Stipe and the Kills' Alison Mossheart so underplayed that they're nearly hidden. Steve Hewitt's drumming is so metronome-friendly it could be a machine, and the band augments him with mecha-Bonham programming on a couple of tracks. Even with the Ziploc production, this is still the most varied record Placebo have produced-- they now have more settings than "quiet" and "loud".