Placebo have announced their next album: Never Let Me Go is slated for release on March 25, 2022. Along with the news, they’ve shared the new track ‘Surrounded by Spies’ and announced a run of 2022 tour dates in the UK and Ireland. Below, check out the new single, the album’s cover artwork and tracklist, and the band’s tour schedule.
Talking about ‘Surrounded by Spies’, vocalist Brian Molko explained in a press release:
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 cellphone, 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.
I used the cut-up technique invented by William S Burroughs and popularized in modern song by David Bowie. It’s a true story told through a lens of paranoia, complete disgust for modern society’s values and the deification of surveillance capitalism. The narrator is at the end of their tether, hopeless and afraid, completely at odds with our newfound progress and the god of money.
Placebo’s last album, Loud Like Love, came out in 2013. In September, the band released their first single in five years, ‘Beautiful James’.
Never Let Me Go Cover Artwork:
Never Let Me Go Tracklist:
1. Forever Chemicals
2. Beautiful James
3. Hugz
4. Happy Birthday In The Sky
5. The Prodigal
6. Surrounded By Spies
7. Try Better Next Time
8. Sad White Reggae
9. Twin Demons
10. Chemtrails
11. This Is What You Wanted
12. Went Missing
13. Fix Yourself
Placebo 2022 Tour Dates:
Nov Fri 18 – Portsmouth – Guildhall
Nov Sat 19 – Brighton – Brighton Centre
Nov Mon 21 – Liverpool – Eventim Olympia
Nov Tue 22 – Manchester – O2 Victoria Warehouse
Nov Thu 24 – Cardiff – Motorpoint Arena
Nov Sat 26 – London – O2 Brixton Academy
Nov Sun 27 – London – O2 Brixton Academy
Nov Tue 29 – Leicester – De Montford Hall
Nov Wed 30 – Leeds – O2 Academy Leeds
Dec Fri 2 – Newcastle – O2 City Hall
Dec Sat 3 – Glasgow – O2 Academy Glasgow
Dec Mon 5 – Dublin – 3 Arena
Dec Wed 7 – Cambridge – Corn Exchange
Dec Thu 8 – Birmingham – O2 Academy 1
