By Ken Scrudato

August 19, 2016

If rock & roll decadence has indeed flamed out, replaced by a sorry parade of quinoa-eating indie folk bands, it at least had a spectacular send off. Indeed, when Placebo arrived on the scene in 1996 in a blaze of funereal glamour and insatiable narcotics habits, they seemed determined to bring polite society down around them. Seven albums of metallic depravity operas have since sold 11 million copies.

Two decades later, the eyeliner is maybe a little less pronounced, and they might even be partial to the occasional cup of tea. But the music is as raw and as grandiose as ever. And as they prep for a 20 Years of Placebo tour that will take them from Copenhagen to Moscow to Milan, ending up at Wembley Arena on December 15, we’ve got the stunningly filmed video for new single “Jesus’ Son,” which will also appear on the retrospective album A Place For Us To Dream, released October 7. A collection of six previously unreleased tracks titled Life’s What You Make it (and featuring a cover of the Talk Talk song of the same name) will be released the same day.