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A letter to Placebo + the UK alt-rock trio release a teaser trailer for new record ‘Loud Like Love’

Oh, PLACEBO, over the years we’ve been through so much together.

We grew up as one, acting out the lyrics of Nancy Boy in our childhood homes while our parents were at work, shooting Sarah Michelle Gellar nasty glares while Every You Every Me played during Cruel Intentions, dabbling in Special K in the college dorms, and even spending summer nights under Infa-Red after our stuffy day jobs in the mid-2000s.

Sure, we grew apart in recent years — Battle For The Sun just rattled hollow for an old guy like me, my Teenage Angst squared away long ago — but I always considered you a good friend. Molko & Me coulda been a hit reality show.

You know, I still checked in on you, stalking your Facebook page at 4am and writing MOLKO on my arm in Sharpie (but only when I knew I was wearing long sleeves the next day), wishing I could turn the clock back 36 degrees and we could all hang out like the good old days. I’d listen to “You Don’t Care About Us” and I’d feel guilty. It wasn’t you, it’s me. Without You I was …something, though I felt incomplete.

But now it seems like you’re back, I think, as today you posted this teaser trailer clip for a new song, “Loud Like Love” off an upcoming seventh studio album of the same name. It’s out September 16, and it features 10 new songs produced in London by Adam Noble. It sounds refreshing, those guitars rip like it’s 199whenever all over again.

There are festival dates this summer in Turkey and South Korea, then a European tour for the record this fall. I know you’re still in demand over there. But you are here, too. Your homepage tells me North American dates are on the way, likely over the winter, and that just warms my heart.

I’ll see if I can find my eyeliner. If not, I’ll go to Claire’s at the Cambridgeside Galleria and stock up, give myself a clean shave as well. You can come too, although last time I saw you in Boston, at a signing at First Act Guitar Studio, Brian was in a bad mood. It’s cool, we all have days like that.

I’ve missed you, Placebo. You know me better than I know myself.

Like eye holes in a paper bag,
xo Michael