Back in 1995, Placebo's self-titled debut read like an almanac for a nation-full of detached young goths burdened with school life, social exclusion and unrequited sexual frustration. Coming to the fore under John Major's Conservative government and singing of gay sex and drug abuse, the band were, at least to the tabloids, everything that was deemed wrong with society. To those who never quite fitted in, however, there was a poster-boy to be found in the form of androgynous frontman Brian Molko, a man who was not only beautifully literate, unusual and maligned enough for outsiders to relate to, but rebellious too, in the way that, say, The Cure's Robert Smith never was; a Marc Bolan for the nineties, maybe, but with the social conscience of Siouxie Sioux.

Eleven years later though and much has changed. A mixture of Tony Blair's Cool Britannia, his love of privatisation, the increasing gulf between the classes and Loaded editor James Brown's invention of Laddism has seen the public vilification from the right-wing press shift maliciously towards the lower working class, Burberry-capped youth, with the subject matter of certain footballers and their creative use of mobile phones during sex now being met by the Red-Tops with a degree of amusement. The band's younger following have since grown up, now in their mid-to-late-twenties and burdened instead with the pressures of work, finances and, perhaps for some, family life. A poor time then for the band to harken back to their indie roots and attempt to replicate the importance of their debut by again revisting those ever-present themes of sex and drugs, obsession and addiction, erotica and, if you will, narcotica.

To give Meds its dues, it may not as fresh as Placebo, or as absolutely vital as Black Market Music, but it doesn't come without its highlights. The title track, with guest vocals from Alison Mosshart, sees the Kills' VV in an unusually sultry mood. Pierrot The Clown is full of wonderfully over-the-top self-pity and melodrama, while Follow The Cops Back Home, with its call to arms to stalk the police and 'rob their houses', just about succeeds in falling on the right side of petulance. Yet these songs, for all their worth, fail to disguise the underlying problem throughout the album. Drag, more of an exercise in jealousy than one of admiration, and recent single Because I Want You, boasting its fairly decent hook, are good but seem like nothing more than standard, text-book Placebo, only inferior, like the work of some very good tribute act. The rest is somewhat tiresome. Space Monkey would almost recall the brilliant Brick Shithouse, had it not been so instantly forgettable and lyrically, there is little on the album to really hold onto and cherish. What once would have been so eloquently filthy is, on Post Blue for example, just that little bit crass. Vocally, meanwhile, there is still minimal room for variation, though it's seemingly not for the want of trying and on the stripped down Broken Promises, despite his best efforts, Molko is tragically out-grumbled by the increasingly gruff Michael Stipe.

Placebo could still hold some appeal to today's similarly detached youth, though it's difficult to tell if they need Brian Molko any more than they can find solace in the hundreds of emo bands to whom they inadvertedly, and rather unfortunately, opened the doors to. Not that Placebo now seem like also-rans in comparison to the likes of the turgid Fall Out Boy, for instance, because Meds isn't actually a terrible album. It's just not a very good one either.

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