Electro-pop veterans call for revolution on Spirit, a thirteenth album with a breathtaking modernity.
And if "Spirit", the new Depeche Mode, already established itself as one of the most relevant albums of 2017? Even if they do not have anything to prove, Martin Gore, Dave Gahan and Andy Fletcher have taken the risk of going out radically from their comfort zone on this thirteenth studio record. On the single Where's The Revolution, Gahan draws up the observation of the world as it is: dark, bruised, hurt. But hope is at the end of the tunnel. "The train is coming, get on board," he says as if to invite us to find the desire to change things. With Going Backwards, who does not open the record by pure coincidence, Depeche Mode draws the main lines of the picture: an impressive bass guitar, a hard rhythm, blood-chilling sounds and an almost nihilistic comment: "We lost our Soul, we no longer feel anything deep inside us ". The other major topic discussed in "Spirit" is not the most joyful either. The desperate ballad The Worst Crime, You Move, So Much Love or Poison Heart revolve around the love disillusionment and wear and tear of the couple.
By entrusting the mixing pad controllers to James Ford (Foals, Florence & The Machine, Arctic Monkeys), the Basildon trio almost renounces its pop side to favor darker climates. More than a collection of singles, Depeche Mode has designed a coherent work from beginning to end. Martin Gore sings on Fall which closes the disc but, on the other hand, we hear very little on the guitar. It is the machines that reign more than ever on "Spirit". And there is, of course, the voice of Gahan. On the mystical Eternal and on Cover Me, poignant song about redemption, she is beautiful to cry. After thirty-eight years of career and 100 million records sold, Depeche Mode is not content to remain a reference with "Spirit". He wants to be a pioneer for years to come.
