Boris Barabanov about the new Depeche Mode album

Depeche Mode have long earned the unconditional status of the third “Russian folk group” after The Beatles and Deep Purple. Just as if by order (or maybe really by order), before the release of Depeche Mode’s 13th studio album, memes appeared on the RuNet - a note to the DJ asking him to play “dipi shmot” and a stylized 1980s poster for the “dipi shmot” concert at the Olimpiysky ". The network is scoffing at Depeche Mode’s unshakable position in Russia for good reason. They're absurdly popular here. They say that only the worst tickets are left for their concert, which will take place on June 22 at the Lokomotiv stadium. And most of it, of course, was sold out before the album's release. One could record this concert as purely nostalgic entertainment, but Internet memes are certainly not the work of forty-year-old clerks who grew up listening to the albums “Music For The Masses” and “Violator”. Depeche Mode somehow still made it through time.

Martin Gore said in an interview with Kommersant that during the recording process the group was strongly influenced by the blues. The formal characteristics of blues on the disc correspond to two tracks - “Slow” and “Goodbye”. The sound of the main body of songs reproduces the standards of synth-pop and early techno, that is, the canon of the classic Depeche Mode themselves, and the blues basis behind it is almost impossible to hear.

Picky music lovers subjected David Bowie's recent album to a detailed analysis for autoplagiarism and found a literal analogue in the discography for each new song. The album "Delta Machine" is no less begging for this procedure: loyal fans will recognize the golden harmonies of Depeche Mode in the new songs right away. For the first time in the last ten years, musicians' claims that they have "returned to their roots" are absolutely true. In the new songs, Depeche Mode stopped hiding their youthful heroism and prayerful lyrics behind guitar barricades and studio delights. Martin Gore, the pre-eminent pop composer of our time, has finally regained the balanced acoustic environment, that rarefied air, pierced by electrical discharges, which had eluded the band for many years. In addition, Gore took on "Delta Machine" immediately after finishing work with Vince Clarke on the joint techno album "VCMG".

Despite the participation of long-time Depeche Mode partner Ben Hillier and Christopher Berg, producer of The Knife and Little Dragon, the person who determined the textured sound of the album should be recognized as Mark Ellis, nicknamed Flood. He mixed "Delta Machine" and his style is immediately recognizable - as on the song "Secret To The End", reminiscent of Flood's work with U2 during the "Pop" album.

If we return to the question of the style of the album, not the letter, but the spirit of the blues was conveyed by vocalist Dave Gun, as if he did not notice that he was again in his own band, and not visiting the Soulsavers, with whom last year he released a record of proud rock ballads . Having opened the album with the global electronic gospel "Welcome To My World", already in the second song "Angel" he tears the ligaments in the manner of Nick Cave. It turns out that in order to unite and record their best album in the last 12 years, Martin Gore and Dave Gun first had to run away and do things as far as possible from what is considered the Depeche Mode standard. And only after that will they re-experience the music for which they are so loved in Russia.

Depeche Mode "Delta Machine" (Columbia)

http://www.depechemode.com/

Blues creator – Weekend – Kommersant