Depeche Mode's Playing the Angel

My review of Depeche Mode's new album is long overdue.

DM has continued their recent trend of being more like synth-rock rather than synth-pop (i.e., they've gotten "harder" in recent years). The album is excellent---it's much better than Exciter (which was still very good) but does not achieve the awesome level of 1997's Ultra, which I overplayed to legendary proportions on the day it came out. (In fact, between Tropic and Inferno, there were four different people playing that album all day and they were all phase-shifted from each other. The idea for the phase-shifted multi-Tarzan Boy derived in part from this incident. Some people were just a bit annoyed with us, and it was amusing as all Hell.) It's also not as good as older albums such as Violator (but I just met her!) and Music for the Masses, but it's hard to top albums that contain all-time great songs like "Enjoy the Silence" and "Strangelove". (Actually, "Strangelove" is probably my favorite DM song of all time right now, and that's a very strong statement, given how much I love their music.)

I don't normally pay too much attention to track ordering, although DM did specifically utilized this (in very non-subtle manners) twice on Ultra. On Playing the Angel, I found the ordering particularly apt between tracks 2 and 3. The track that harkens back the most to vintage DM is #5, "Precious", which was the first single released. It reminds me a bit of "It's No Good" (by far the best song on Ultra). As a result, this is unsurprisingly my favorite song on the album. Track #1, "A Pain that I'm Used To" is another awesome song, and it sets the tone quite nicely. (This was the right choice to start the album.) DM is screaming its pain and negativity on this whole album, and that has been another reason I've always loved their stuff. My thoughts are often rather dark, and this group is especially good at expressing this. (They occasionally have positive songs, including some of my favorites, but they are certainly known for the negativity of some of the lyrics.) This also makes DM songs excellent fodder for All Depressing and Cynical Song Specials (especially the infamous Valentine's Day Edition!). The other part of this album that is very similar to their usual fare are the religious undertones in many of the songs. This is actually why tracks 2 and 3 go together so well. (Those two are also both very good songs.) Track #3, "Suffer Well", has the best quote of the album: "An angel led me when I was blind // I said take me back, I've changed my mind."

Anyway, I like this album very much and I've been attempting to overplay it to keep that damn Katamari theme out of my head.