#148

Gave up after SOFAD (as much due to a change in my musical tastes versus the quality of the albums) but Playing The Angel pulled me back in. Still listen to it periodically (in the car - I got a CD version of it from the chazzer as part of a 3 CDs for a quid dealy :+1:)…

#149

Big fan of ‘Playing The Angel’, restored my faith (and devotion) after ‘Exciter’.

1 Like
#150

I quote like ‘Dream On’ & ‘Dead of Night’. I’m also rather fond of the cheesy ‘Goodnight Lovers’. It isn’t a very memorable album though.

#151

Without wanting to sound like a nutter from the Steve Hoffman forum, this is the worst sounding CD they have ever released. It has been mastered at a very high volume and the sound of it suffers as a result. This was released at peak time for the “loudness wars” and it shows.

#152

Can’t deny Precious. What a late-career hit, in their top 5 for me

1 Like
#153

Great album. I like it as much as Violator.

1 Like
#154

12. Sounds of the Universe

We are only (only!) doing the first 13 tracks. The deluxe edition is a 3 hour monster!

As with their previous album Playing the Angel, Dave Gahan once again wrote three songs with Christian Eigner and Andrew Phillpott: “Hole to Feed”, “Come Back”, and “Miles Away/The Truth Is”. Martin Gore shares lead vocal duties with Gahan on “In Chains”, “Peace”, and “Little Soul”.

While Dave Gahan was still busy with his solo album Hourglass (2007), Martin Gore was in his home studio in Santa Barbara, California, working on new songs. In May 2008 the band hit the studio to record their twelfth studio album. Ben Hillier took the production reins again, because the band were so satisfied with their previous collaboration on Playing the Angel (2005).

The band described the time in the studio as very productive, a total of 22 songs were created and it was difficult to choose the right songs for the album. Five of the songs not used on the album were released as part of the deluxe box set.

Sounds of the Universe received generally positive reviews from music critics. Entertainment Weekly’s Leah Greenblatt stated that on Sounds of the Universe, Depeche Mode “still sound genuinely inspired” and Ned Raggett of AllMusic concluded, “Sounds of the Universe is a grower, relying on a few listens to fully take effect, but when it does, it shows Depeche Mode are still able to combine pop-hook accessibility and their own take on ‘roots’ music for an electronic age with sonic experimentation and recombination.” However, Rolling Stone critic Melissa Maerz felt that “the result sounds like a time machine back to the Eighties”, adding that “Depeche Mode should be poised for a comeback, but it’s too soon to unpack those black turtlenecks.”

So, rate out of 5:

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0 voters

#155

My favourite since SOFAD…

#156

I don’t think I’ve ever listened to this album.
Will sort it out this morning

2 Likes
#157

I dropped away from DM after ‘Ultra’. ‘Exciter’ has a couple of tracks I didn’t mind, but every album after that just does nothing for me, sadly.

#158

Also, all their album covers are hideous from playing the angel onwards. Please get new graphic designers DM.

#159

13. Delta Machine

Tracks 1-13 here.

According to Dave Gahan, Delta Machine marks the end of the trilogy of records that Depeche Mode were recording with producer Ben Hillier. The album is Martin Gore and Gahan’s thematic continuation to a dark, gloomy and bluesy aesthetic that Depeche Mode had started to explore in the late 1980s. The Quietus writer Luke Turner viewed it as the band’s “most powerful, gothic, twisted, electronic album since Violator”.

Delta Machine received generally positive reviews from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an average score of 65, based on 33 reviews. Entertainment Weekly’s Kyle Anderson hailed Delta Machine as “the strongest album the group has put out this century” and praised the work of collaborator Christoffer Berg, stating he “lends a long-lost toughness that runs through much of Delta”. The Times critic Will Hodgkinson commented that the album “finds the band striking just the right balance between the chirpy electro-pop of their early days and the harsh industrial dissonance of the later albums”. Benjamin Boles of Now proclaimed it as “the best album of [Depeche Mode’s] career” and found that the songs “find the band leaping in thrillingly unexpected directions and landing on their feet every time.”

Who’s excited?!

Score Delta Machine out of 5:

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#160

Delta Machine is rubbish - so, so dreary. The one album of theirs that I never re-visit :-1:

#161

I felt like it had interesting textures on my first listen but otherwise it wasn’t all that.

#162

14 (FINALLY). Spirit

Tracks 1-12 cover the original album.

Not much on Wikipedia:

Spirit received highly positive reviews from critics upon release. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an average score of 74, based on 24 reviews. Spirit debuted at number five on the UK Albums Chart, selling 23,658 units in its first week. It is their 17th top ten album in the UK. The following week, the album dropped out of the top 10 to number 17 with sales of 5,658. The album debuted at number five on the US Billboard 200, selling 64,000 album-equivalent units (62,000 in pure album sales).

6.8 on Pitchfork - “Spirit is Depeche Mode’s most pointedly topical album, but the synth giants still write universal, stadium-sized music. These songs make you feel like singing in response to today’s headlines.”

Looks like DiS never reviewed it but there was this interview a month before:

Score out of 5 for Spirit

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#163

Enjoyed this album mostly - could do with trimming a couple of tracks, but a return to form after the dull Delta Machine. Saw them twice on this tour - London Stadium and The O2. Still good live even in an enormodome…

1 Like
#164

I need to listen to this again, from memory track 1 and Cover Me are the highlights. I saw them at the Barrowlands (6 Music Festival) on this tour, which I don’t think I’ll ever top, so probably won’t ever bother seeing them again.

1 Like
#165

Spirit starts off well but just seems to leap off a cliff after the first few tracks for me and get really quite dull. Giving it another listen in case it sticks better.

#166

Okay, I’ll leave the polls open but as of right now the scores are:

Title Votes Score Link
Violator 29 4.69 Post 89
Songs of Faith and Devotion 17 4.24 Post 110
Music for the Masses 21 4.1 Post 79
Black Celebration 19 4 Post 61
Ultra 17 3.53 Post 130
Playing the Angel 9 3.44 Post 144
Some Great Reward 11 3.27 Post 54
Sounds of the Universe 5 3.2 Post 154
Spirit 7 3 Post 162
Construction Time Again 15 2.93 Post 48
Exciter 10 2.7 Post 142
Speak and Spell 23 2.57 Post 2
A Broken Frame 16 2.38 Post 16
Delta Machine 5 2 Post 159

And a chart showing number of votes (left axis) vs score (right axis)
(probably easier to see when you click on it)

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10 Likes
"placemarks" on a thread
#167

:clap::clap::clap:

3 Likes