EXCLUSIVE: Placebo 7”

Double A-side: Beautiful James / Surrounded By Spies on bright green coloured vinyl

Placebo resurfaced from a long hibernation to release their first single in five years – ‘Beautiful James’. A joyous and celebratory song, it came quietly loaded with antagonism for the increasingly prominent, ignorant, factions that have come to litter modern conversation. As Brian Molko commented at the time, “If the song serves to irritate the squares and the uptight, so gleefully be it.”

Within the magnetic slow-burn of ‘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.