Depeche Mode, reasons driving force Martin Gore, are “a subversive pop band, able to get away with anything”. Theirs have always been twisted songs of faith and devotion, sex and death. Musically not much has changed either, the past decade spent trying to reach the heights of best work ‘Violator’ and ‘Songs Of Faith And Devotion’.
Four weedy boys from Basildon (England’s answer to Poffadder) burst onto the charts — decked out in shirts, ties and suspenders — with a cheesy, irrepressibly bouncy synth-pop song about nothing really, ‘Just Can’t Get Enough’. Who’d have thought that a little over ten years later their band would be one of the biggest in the world; their tattooed, heroin-addicted lead singer would resemble an emaciated Jesus; and their dark songs would be about sex, death, religion.
It’s a transformation that can be heard on ‘The Best Of Volume 1’ and that began, gradually, after that first hit song back in 1981. Chief songwriter Vince Clarke left the group — to continue his brand of cheesy, irrepressibly bouncy synth-pop with Yazoo and Erasure — leaving the far more cynical, nihilistic Martin L. Gore to come up with the tunes.
“Pain and suffering in various tempos” declares the sleeve of ‘Playing the Angel’ proudly. Business as usual then for the boys from Depeche Mode? A handful of critics seem to think so, having derided the band’s first album in four years as “the same old stuff with some new bleeps and blops”. But they’re wrong.
Yes, it does draw musical inspiration from their landmark albums ‘Violator’ and ‘Songs of Faith and Devotion’ — and the lyrics are preoccupied with sex and religion, as always — but the trio’s latest offering is no cash-in nostalgia trip.
Nils van der Linden