'Playing the Angel'..
Not me but Depeche Mode. It's the title of their 11th Studio-album which is just "released". As a music-junkie, and of electronical music in peticulair, I had to buy it naturally straightaway. Especially while the song 'Precious', which they released a couple of weeks ago, sounded promising. Not as good as 'Enjoy the Silence' but nice.
On thursday however I read in a newspaper the "way" DM recorded this album and how non-social they actually were. You never know how things go and how you perceive them when you DON'T know such things. But it's rather difficult to ignore that information while listening to their new album.
Somewhere in Spring this year I read somewhere that this would be their last album. Hopefully it will not be! The album is not what I expected from a band that made impressive and brilliant albums like 'Black celebration' and 'Violator'. The thing that singer Dave Gahan mentioned in the interview can be heard quite well on the record. Usually it's only Martin Gore who writes the songs but for this album you couldn't be the only writer. While Dave Gahan had dozens of songs already written Martin Gore had to start writing. Nevertheless only three of the twelve songs are in fact written by the singer, Dave Gahan. The other nine are, as usual, from Martin Gore. And it's the songs of Martin Gore (!) that seem to decrease the value of the album instead of uplift it. It all sounds ordinary. It's missing a major element: real engagement, fun,.. it's almost boring. And so they almost have to make a new last record to really go out with a bang.. hopefully Martin Gore will find a way to make inspiring music again otherwise he has to step back and let Dave be the main-writer.
Funny enough you can also see the unmotivated attitude coming back in the artwork. I've always been very fond of the photographic works of Anton Corbijn. He's also always mentioned as THE artistic imagebuilder of Depeche Mode.. It's almost as if he could hear the illness of the current album. Photographed it and designed the artwork for it.. or he was having a "pain and suffering in various tempos" (as the subtitle is called) himself.
And then another thing.. the've released their record in two formats: a standard CD and a special-edition SACD-DVD. Why SACD?! My CD-player doesn't understand SACD let alone all those irritating "locks" recordcompanies tend to have to place on their CD's.. RRRRrrrrrr.
On thursday however I read in a newspaper the "way" DM recorded this album and how non-social they actually were. You never know how things go and how you perceive them when you DON'T know such things. But it's rather difficult to ignore that information while listening to their new album.
Somewhere in Spring this year I read somewhere that this would be their last album. Hopefully it will not be! The album is not what I expected from a band that made impressive and brilliant albums like 'Black celebration' and 'Violator'. The thing that singer Dave Gahan mentioned in the interview can be heard quite well on the record. Usually it's only Martin Gore who writes the songs but for this album you couldn't be the only writer. While Dave Gahan had dozens of songs already written Martin Gore had to start writing. Nevertheless only three of the twelve songs are in fact written by the singer, Dave Gahan. The other nine are, as usual, from Martin Gore. And it's the songs of Martin Gore (!) that seem to decrease the value of the album instead of uplift it. It all sounds ordinary. It's missing a major element: real engagement, fun,.. it's almost boring. And so they almost have to make a new last record to really go out with a bang.. hopefully Martin Gore will find a way to make inspiring music again otherwise he has to step back and let Dave be the main-writer.
Funny enough you can also see the unmotivated attitude coming back in the artwork. I've always been very fond of the photographic works of Anton Corbijn. He's also always mentioned as THE artistic imagebuilder of Depeche Mode.. It's almost as if he could hear the illness of the current album. Photographed it and designed the artwork for it.. or he was having a "pain and suffering in various tempos" (as the subtitle is called) himself.
And then another thing.. the've released their record in two formats: a standard CD and a special-edition SACD-DVD. Why SACD?! My CD-player doesn't understand SACD let alone all those irritating "locks" recordcompanies tend to have to place on their CD's.. RRRRrrrrrr.
posted by BlacKie at 3:36 AM
1 Comments:
There's a great review at Geeky Kewl for this new album as well as some info about a free streaming version of the album that the band put up on MySpace. Click here - http://geekykewl.com/index.php?p=353 - for more info.
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