Sculpture Magazine

Truly, only DM, after all these years as a hugely successful electronic act, could get away with calling their new album Sounds of the Universe. (It makes you think of a new age box set of some sort sold on satellite TV for 9.99) But they did and in very few ways will it disappoint the legion of DM fans worldwide. As would be expected of such an influential and consistently brilliant band that has been around for close to 30 years, Sounds of the Universe touches all the bases that have made their music so compelling over the years.

With the opening slow electronic grind of "In Chains" and the allusion to bondage, both emotional and physical, you have begun a DM album with the appropriate amount of reverie. It’s a great song and what strikes you most after several listens is just how fresh it sounds when compared to their past catalog. While the theme and pacing is unmistakably Depheche Mode, the vocals are downright energized and the musical arrangement, with its funky tinges, breathes new life into an old formula. And funky is the right term here. This applies to the first single "Wrong" as well as several other songs. Has this sometimes morose, occasionally brittle electronic band found their hips? It would appear so. Sounds of the Universe, regardless of past digressions, has DM mixing up their past musical influences and tossing out some of their most evocative music yet. There is everything to be found on this album, from industrial guitars to hard core electro pop, on through plain and simple rock and roll.

You would be hard pressed to find a stronger up-tempo, electronic song in their catalog than "In Sympathy." It stacks up well alongside the Pet Shop Boys or New Order at their finest and illustrates just how influenced by and influential DM has been in the overall electronic music scene over the years. And if you want a classic DM song plug in "Corrupt." This slow to explode song has all the elements of dark lyrics and smoldering, grinding keyboards and guitars that we have all come to expect from Depeche Mode.

All in all, Sounds of the Universe appears to put Depeche Mode in a creative and fertile place in this their third decade as a band. While there is much you might refer to as tortured and morose about the lyrics and musical pacing here, as we have come to expect from DM, still, an unbridled enthusiasm of musical synergy overtakes most every song on this album. Take "Miles Away". This song rocks along with a touch-Eastern inflected guitars and rhythms, and funky beats, and combine that with some of Gahan’s strongest and most powerful vocals ever, and you have much to look forward to from this brilliant and seminal band.

Not that there aren’t some partial misses on Sounds of the Universe. What is with the "Spacewalker" ditty? (Is this a self-parody of their outrageously proposterous title? Are they too powerful for someone to say-Cut this please?) And personally the sappy sort of ballad like "Jezebel" that occasionally crop up on a DM album always makes me wince a bit. But all in all, Sounds of the Universe has brought DM back from the musical abyss one more time and left a great album for us all.

Track List

01. In Chains
02. Hole To Feed
03. Wrong | play mp3 sample
04. Fragile Tension
05. Little Soul
06. In Sympathy
07. Peace
08. Come Back
09. Spacewalker
10. Perfect
11. Miles Away / The Truth Is
12. Jezebel
13. Corrupt