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Artist: Depeche Mode
Title: Sounds of the Universe

In brief: The most boring album Depeche Mode has ever released.

First off, a bit of a disclaimer. If you’re a Depeche Mode fan, you might get a bit pissed off about what I have to say. You might even see me as a DM hater. If that sounds likely, you can feck right off. Don’t let the door hit you on the ass.

The thing is, I’m probably a bigger fan of Depeche Mode than you. I fell in love with the band in 1981, immediately after hearing Just Can’t Get Enough for the first time. During the years I’ve spent thousands of Euros on their music and merchandise. I’ve seen them live at least 20 times in various European cities and first attended their concert on the Black Celebration Tour, back in 1986. I guess you could say I’m a pretty hard-core fan of DM.

But I’m not a fan of guitars, acoustic drums or rock’n'roll. Give me synthesizers and electro pop; give me fantastic melodies, chord changes and pop hooks that stick in my mind until death. Songs like Strangelove. People Are People. Everything Counts. Enjoy The Silence. Yes, you know what I mean.

I was convinced Alan Wilder’s departure would be the end of Depeche Mode. But no. They took a brief break to sort out their lives and, in the case of Dave, their deaths, and bounced back. Tim Simenon and his team did a pretty good job replacing Wilder, I thought. What’s more, Ultra displayed some excellent song writing.

I think the same applies to Exciter, to some extent. There’s no denying the fact that DM fucked up by hiring/forcing Mark Bell to produce the entire album. Again, the album has a few bloody excellent songs on it, but Gore’s songs were incompatible with Bell’s production.

Playing The Angel was, to me, a welcome return to the halcyon days of Ultra and Songs of Faith and Devotion. The songs weren’t of the quality the fans were used to, certainly, but Ben Hillier’s lush production more than made up for the somewhat lacklustre writing. And who’d have thought Dave Gahan possessed the writing chops to create Suffer Well, one of the album’s highlights?

Three and a half years later, and Sounds of the Universe is now mere weeks from its official release. This is the album which was supposed to take DM back to their electronic roots. Not Speak & Spell; surely nobody expected that. How about Music for the Masses, then? Nuh-uh. Care we hope for the poppy perfection of Violator? You’re having a laugh, mate. “Returning to their electronic roots”. I have no idea who first started that rumour, but it turned out to be complete and utter bullshit. Thanks for getting our hopes up, you douche.

Remember how DM used guitars in the past? They were sampled, processed and combined with other sounds to create something new, something exciting. As the years went on, the amount of processing became less and less, until a guitar on a DM album sounded like… well, a guitar, plain and simple. On Sounds of the Universe the original idea has been turned on its head. Now synths sound like distorted electric guitars. Surely you’ve heard “Wrong”, the first single from the new album? It’s got plenty of synthesizers, but they’re all slightly distorted, growling, resonating buzzsaws, filling in the spectrum like a wall of electric guitars. There’s plenty more of that on the album.

Don’t get me wrong, though. Depeche Mode has not turned into something you listen to while torching a church in Norway. There’s no spikey hockey gear in sight, nor is anyone wearing a black & white clown mask. No, things aren’t quite that bad. To be honest, the album contains quite a lot of clearly synthesized sounds. I can almost hear you go “Ah-ha!” on this revelation. But wait! It’s not what you think. Hillier & DM have taken a two-prong approach to synths on this album.

INTERIOR. STUDIO. MORNING.
Present: producer Ben Hillier, songwriter Martin Gore, accountant Andrew Fletcher

There’s a thump on the door. Ben walks over, opens the door and sees Martin struggling with a tall pile of keyboards.

- “What’s this? More synths?!”
- “Help us out here mate. My back is killing me.”

Together they arrange the keyboards on the studio’s large table.

- “Martin, we really don’t need any more synths. We’re drowning in them as it is!”
- “I know… but we’re supposed to be going back to our electronic roots. Don’t you read the internet? Let’s plug them in!”

Three hours later. A massive fart sound plays from the speakers. Someone is heard laughing and clapping in the adjacent room.

- “Fuck it. I hate synthesizers!”
- “Ohh-kay Mart, take it easy. So what do we do?”
- “Screw the synths. I don’t want to hide behind keyboards anyway. I want to stand on the edge of the stage, pluck a couple of notes and feel the audience love me! Why should Dave hog all the glory?”
- “Rrrright.”
- “Let’s go through all the songs and add a wee guitar solo to each one.”
- “A guitar solo? You mean, like a proper rock’n'roll solo?”
- “Nahh, too much work. A few simple notes I can play in my sleep should do.”

Half an hour later. Martin flicks a guitar pick at the trash can. Ben looks worried.

- “What do we do with all these synthesizers?”
- “Let me think… Got it! Let’s start a couple of tracks like this.”

Martin taps his finger on the table, playing a series of sixteenth notes.

- “Just a single note?”
- “Yeah! It’s electronic! That’ll shut the synthpoppers up.”
- “But Martin… we’re burying all that under a wall of guitars and live drums a few seconds later! You honestly think you can fool them with that?”
- “Probably not. Good point. Ah, to hell with it. Add a few synthesized plinks, plonks and sproings whenever there’s room in the mix and Bob’s your uncle!”

So, yeah.

1) Start the track with one or two synths playing the most simple melody you can imagine, let them play for a few seconds, then bury them under other instruments.

2) Use synths as sound effects to fill in any “empty” gaps in the songs.

INTERIOR. STUDIO. DAY.
Present: producer Ben Hillier, songwriter Martin Gore

Ben and Martin are listening to a mix of ‘Peace’.

- “There you go, Mart. You guys haven’t had a track this electronic since Exciter.”
- “Hmm… it’s still missing something. Oh, I know!”
- “Go on…”
- “Some guitar!”
- “*facepalm* Of course.”

Martin stands up and skips happily towards the guitar rack. He doesn’t notice the one already plugged in and trips on its lead. The guitar falls down on the floor and Martin lands on its strings face first.

- “Got it in one, thanks.”

Martin removes a pick from his nostril and looks up, flummoxed.

- “Eh?”
- “Yeah, that’ll do fine. I’ll slap that in at the end… there… save it… aaand we can break for lunch.”

In all seriousness, though, “Peace” can honestly be labeled ‘electronic pop’. But that’s the only one on an album of 13 tracks. It’s not a very good song, either.

And therein lies my biggest issue with SOTU. It doesn’t have any good songs on it. Not a single one. Really. “Peace” is probably the best of the crop. But had it been placed on, say, Black Celebration or Music for the Masses, it would have easily stuck out as the worst track of the album.

Sounds of the Universe is populated entirely by mediocrity. There’s no passion, no soul, not a single unforgettable hook in any of the tracks. Gore’s songs reek of a song writer way past his prime, now running on automatic, churning out songs that could have been written by almost anyone. Gahan, along with his writing partners, is still struggling for respectability in Gore’s shadow, all too often falling back to clichés and lazy, instantly forgettable melodies.

Sure, there are some brief glimpses of greatness hidden among the turds. However, those are limited to a nice chord change in one song, a clever arrangement to enhance the refrain or a nice change in atmosphere for the bridge in another. Fleeting, all too brief glimpses that have absolutely no chance in rescuing the whole from being the most boring, most disposable album Depeche Mode has ever released.

INTERIOR. STUDIO. MORNING.
Present: producer Ben Hillier, songwriter Martin Gore, singer Dave Gahan

Ben frowns and looks up from his notes.

- “Lads, I don’t think you’ve got a proper track to release as the first single.”

Martin and Dave glance at each other. Martin grins and picks up a pen and a piece of paper.

- “I can whip something up in no time.”
- “Uh, I don’t think that’s necessary, Mart. I’m sure Dave has some songs we haven’t looked at yet. So, uh, Dave, do you think y–”
- “All done.”
- “…what?”
- “First single. All done.”
- “Let me see that!”

Ben yanks the piece of paper from Martin’s fingers and examines it for a few seconds.

- “Mart… you realize that the verse consists of only two alternating notes?”
- “Uh-huh.”
- “And there’s no refrain!”
- “So?”
- “Mart… mate… this is just wrong.”
- “Ooh! Ooh! Can I use that as the title?”

Songs:
Sound:

Links: Homepage

Release date: 20/4/2009
Genre: Pop/Rock
Label: Mute Records / EMI Records Ltd.
Review source: 192kbps mp3

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