Delta Machine reveals darker side of Depeche Mode

Slow tempos and a stylised minimalism are common currencies in the band's 13th record, a testament to their enduring talent.

From left, Andy Fletcher, Dave Gahan and Martin Gore of the band Depeche Mode. Jens Kalaene / EPA

Depeche Mode
Delta Machine
Columbia
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Most people’s favourite songs are sad ones, they say. Stretch “sad” to include “twisted with a dark underbelly” and Depeche Mode’s output supports the theory. It’s difficult to fathom exactly how the callow youths behind the ebullient synth-pop single I Just Can’t Get Enough morphed into stadium-filling gloom-mongers with a taste for excess, but Depeche Mode are unquestionably a go-to act when folks need a soundtrack for their angst.

The band that was formed in Basildon, England, last had a record in 2009 and Sounds of the Universe debuted at No 1 in 14 countries and sold more than 100 million albums to date.

Recorded in Santa Barbara and New York City, Delta Machine is the trio’s 13th record. “I want people to feel good about listening to it, to get some kind of peace,” said their chief songwriter Martin Gore.

As with the ominous and claustrophobic-sounding new song Angel, there’s a curious, quasi-religious quality to Gore’s pronouncement. The Mode are perhaps the world’s biggest cult band, however, and they refer to their huge yet somehow furtive fan base as “the black swarm”.

The album opener Welcome to My World is a pleasing exercise in sonic daring. Its lurching, belly-flopping synth bass is immediately arresting and when frontman Dave Gahan's deep, saturnine vocals enter the fray, it's as confidently exposed as a tightrope walker.

Elsewhere, too, slow tempos and a stylised minimalism are common currencies on Delta Machine – its title flagging-up both the synthesised qua-lity of almost all of its music and the group’s continuing, somewhat paradoxical delta blues influence. This last is most obvious on the album’s propulsive closer Goodbye, its crossroads guitars and glassy synths an odd but fruitful merger of Hazlehurst, Mississippi, in the 1930s and Basildon, Essex, in the 1980s.

Broken, one of three songs penned by Gahan rather than Gore, is another dark highlight. Its groove is unmistakably white and troubled, rather than black and joyous à la Sly and the Family Stone. The melancholia only deepens in The Child Inside. A disembodied-sounding affair evoking Erik Satie teamed with David Sylvian, the song begins with the less than uplifting line: "There is darkness and death in your eyes, then gets more macabre."

That Depeche Mode manage to make all of the above so enjoyable is testament to their enduring talent. Darkness seems to be their muse and dread their springboard. Perhaps it’s all about the catharsis, or that most Mississippi Delta-like of pursuits – facing the devil.

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