Depeche Mode – Playing The Angel
One doesn’t listen to music by Depeche Mode to get happy.
That said, there’s something about Playing The Angel that almost makes me break out in a grin. Depeche Mode is back and in fine form on this album marking the band’s 25th anniversary. Unusually, there’s a mix of songs written by Martin Gore (who’s been the dominant songwriter for much of the band’s career) and lead singer David Gahan, but Gahan’s tunes aren’t filler material begrudgingly added to boost the songwriter’s ego. At least one of them, “Suffer Well”, is as good as many of the songs that most longtime fans now consider to be classics. To be fair, though, Gore turns out some of his best songs since Violator here, with the rollicking “John The Revelator”, “Precious” and the slow-boiling “Sinner In Me” standing out from the crowd. (It’s worth nothing, however, that “Macro” is quite possibly the weakest song Martin Gore has ever unleashed on a Depeche Mode album, combining an uninspired melody with jaw-droppingly trite lyrics – I wouldn’t make such a stink about one song normally, but it’s just so shocking since I’m used to his work being both more musical and more eloquent than this.)
The whole thing thunders along with a combination of modern rhythms and very analog synthesizers, and more assured vocals from David Gahan than I’ve heard in ages. The decision to lean so heavily on analog synths prevents a lot of the sound from being obviously dated, though there are enough modern elements that no one will be mistaking this album for Some Great Reward anytime soon. The distorted, crunchy guitar work is front and center on several songs – in fact, “Sinner In Me” doesn’t really properly kick in until the guitar appears. All in all, it adds up to a very satisfying listen and a fitting celebration of a quarter-century on the musical map for Depeche Mode.
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- A Pain That I’m Used To (3:57)
- John The Revelator (3:41)
- Suffer Well (3:49)
- The Sinner In Me (4:55)
- Precious (4:10)
- Macro (4:02)
- I Want It All (6:09)
- Nothing’s Impossible (4:21)
- Introspectre (1:42)
- Damaged People (3:27)
- Lilian (4:44)
- The Darkest Star (6:38)
Released by: Mute
Release date: 2005
Total running time: 51:35
I’ll admit it upfront: Depeche Mode lost me for the longest time. I wasn’t the biggest fan of Violator, though there was stuff to like on that album. But it was the group’s 90s output – especially Ultra – that had me tuning them out. But at the risk of sounding a little too cheesy, I found Exciter much more exciting. This album sees Depeche Mode – and specifically core members David Gahan and Martin Gore – on the rebound from some of the events that helped the group hit that low ebb.
years. When they started out, they were mavericks on the pop scene, abandoning any sign of traditional instrumentation for the innovative sounds they could coax out of the then-new synths and samplers available in the new wave days. Even though that field’s pretty crowded now, Depeche Mode surprised me with this album, which shows they’re still the innovators they were twenty years ago.
Hailed as a change in direction in the group’s sound, this 1990 album from Depeche Mode introduced one new element: guitars, or at least better-than-usual samples thereof, in addition to the usual wall of synths and samples. But aside from what instruments were being used, this was a big shift in another way, one that I liked – an emphasis on melody and decent songwriting rather than production techniques and pushing the limits of synths and samples for their own sake. There’s actually decent music on here.
While I stated in a previous review that Depeche Mode really lost me with Black Celebration, this CD maxi-single contained the only song of theirs that has piqued my interest since then, “Enjoy The Silence” from the 1990 album Violator. This heavily percussive number combines an interesting piece of music with an unheard-of innovation for Depeche Mode: a guitar! Yes, Martin Gore plays a little bit of guitar on this album, which isn’t really all that alien to the group’s sound – prior to recording its first album, Depeche Mode actually had two guitars! – 
This is the point at which Depeche Mode’s sound started shifting from the interestingly experimental sampling and synths of Some Great Reward to a much heavier, more industrial sound… and I have to confess, they lost me for a long time after this one last really good album. If anything saves this album, it’s the slower songs and ballads, such as “A Question Of Lust”, “World Full Of Nothing”, and the menacing “Dressed In Black”. Faster-paced songs worthy of mention include “A Question Of Time” and the atypically bouncy “But Not Tonight”. The vocals on Black Celebration seem to be above the par set for the previous releases, though the album also falls flat for 
This, to me, is the definitive Depeche Mode album. It also marked the beginning of many listeners’ fascination with the self-proclaimed all-electronic group. The famous (but tiringly repetitive) “People Are People” emerged from this album, but there are other songs I much prefer. “Somebody” is one of the first, if not the first, really good Depeche Mode ballads in the band’s catalog, which is an aspect of Depeche Mode’s sound that I think they made a big mistake in not pursuing. There’s also “Blasphemous Rumours”, a brutally harsh song that’s probably been burned or banned somewhere in the Bible Belt, though its lyrics seem to be aimed at a teen/young adult audience and one has to 
One of the most truly noteworthy albums by Depeche Mode, this one was recorded after the departure of founding member Vince Clarke, and it demonstrated what could have been Depeche Mode’s true calling had they not ventured into heavier, more industrial territory – they could have explored some really different ground with light romantic ballads. On this album, I hold up “See You”, “A Photograph Of You” and “The Meaning Of Love” as examples. As unabashed pop songs go, these aren’t bad at all! Not to say that the more serious tunes on this album – notably “Satellite”, “The Sun And The Rainfall” and “Shouldn’t Have 
So, here we go, I’m sure I’ll hear about this. Yes, I like that electronic group whose music careens back and forth between brilliant and banal. And sadly, the group’s debut album was – at least to me – more banal than brilliant. Though Depeche Mode really didn’t start finding its more familiar voice until after founding member Vince Clarke left, there are a few shining moments amid the primitive drum-machine- and-synth droning of the first album; “New Life” and “Dreaming Of Me” are worth a listen, though “Photographic”, a song which a high school friend of mine often played which was one of my first points of interest in Depeche Mode, has never quite 
fascinated me as much as the group’s later tunes. The same can be said for much of the rest of this album. I know it was revolutionary at the time, but Sgt. Pepper it’s not.