Synthpop maestros Depeche Mode have eliminated drama (drinking, drugging, dying) and timewasting (table football) to make another album thirteen…

Though holed up in a penthouse high above Manhattan, Depeche Mode still can’t shake what they call the Black Swarm. “It got all a bit freaky when they started booking rooms across the way, armed with binoculars, “ says Martin Gore, pointing at the studio’s wall-sized windows and referring to their obsessive followers. “We had a couple of jumpers off that building as well,” chimes in Dave Gahan, making everyone laugh. “I tried to tell them they wouldn’t make it.” 
   Macabre jokes of suicidal fans aside, there’s a distinct lack of gloom in the studio today. Over the past 33 years together, the old friends had good times (selling over 100 million records) and not so good times (Gore’s booze-induced seizures, Andy Fletcher’s nervous breakdown, Gahan’s actual two-minute death). But today the singer seems genuinely inspired. “I sing to the city and it feels great, “ he says, throwing his arms wide. 
   Stirring views and spying devotees aside, Gore insists their sessions are free of distractions – as well as fun. “We’ve been joking that there’s no fun on this record. Last time, we had a table football; three teams played each other every day. So imagine how many hours we saved without it.” Even more hours have been saved not “worrying about having a seizure,” says Gore, since this is the second record he’s made as a teetotaller. “I feel a happier in my own skin now,” he says with a smile. 
   This new attitude has informed the way he is writing and how he’s conceded some songwriting duties to Gahan, a point of bitter contention in the past. “Dave’s been working with a new writing partner [Swiss musician/engineer] Kurt Uelena,” Gore says, “which has been really good, completely different.” 
   Reuniting with producer Ben Hillier, they began the process at Gore’s studio in Santa Barbara, California, before coming here. They haven’t decided on which of the 17 tracks will make the cut, but Gore says three remind him of Violator and that their overall sound is “heavy, modular, very direct” with a “blues influence.” Q is invited to hear a pair. Like so many of their best tunes, the first untitled (untitled) song has a cinematic, road-trip feel. As Dave Gahan croons “the angel of love is upon me/Lord, I feel so small, so weak,” it sounds like celestial beings are hunting him through a dark labyrinth. “It’s got a head-banging quality, which is different for us, but it’s still our usual kind of love song with a bit of religion thrown in,” Gore says with a laugh. 
   The second track, Heaven, is their “take on ‘70s rock – Rod Stewart but modern.” A fuzzed out guitar line underscores Gahan’s vocals: “I dissolve in trust/I will sing with joy/I will end up in dust/I’m in heaven” and the song blooms like a funeral dirge sloughing off the moon for the sun. Both songs showcase how Gahan’s cavernous baritone evolved from the stern, omniscient voice-from-above to a sound more expressive, with a weathered-by-wisdom quality. 
   Depeche Mode – arguably the world’s most successful electronic band, who inspire the Black Swarm to go to great lengths to see them play without being able to hear them – are somehow still a fringe concern. And if that’s achieved by writing songs about the struggle to stay spiritual in a crazy world, then this album is likely to preserve their oddly perfect underdog status.

VICTORIA DE SILVERIO

MORE INFO
Title: TBC
Due: Early 2013
Producer: Ben Hillier
Recorded at: Martin Gore’s studio in Santa Barbara, California, Jungle City, New York
Tracks: So far, Heaven and a as-yet-untitled track (“Angel or Angel of Love are obvious choice but they are quite sappy, and it’s not a sappy song,” says Gore)
Fascinating fact: Martin Gore has an eBay problem. Namely, purchasing vintage recording equipment. “I pretend to myself that I’m not a hoarder, but in actual fact, I am.”