Album Review: Depeche Mode - Delta Machine

The anxiety that Depeche Mode's inherent darkness may be compromised due to rude health remains pervasive with every release. Their extraordinary purple patch from Some Great Reward (1984) to Ultra ('97) mapped a myriad of tussles with various demons for chief songwriter Martin Gore and Messianic singer Dave Gahan, yet the music remained intoxicatingly dark. Since cleaning up, results have varied from clutching at stadia glories (Sounds Of The Universe) to being plainly anaemic (Exciter).

Delta Machine, while made by a trio of souls more apparently at peace with the world, nourishes shadowy hunger with typical Gore-ish introversion, though haven't we heard enough lyrics about guilt and spiritual soul searching by now? The funeral march of Heaven and the synth-stomper Soothe My Soul may not have the sense of immediacy like the first time you heard Condemnation or Policy Of Truth, but in time, they'll be celebrated as comfortable playlist bedfellows to their older, bigger brothers.

Ben Hillier returns for a third residency as producer providing an oft minimalist techno texture to the proceedings. In cahoots with Flood on the mixing desk and Fever Ray collaborator Chris Berg adding further welcome murkily sinister tones, Delta Machine is the most electronic album since Violator. It's not the triumphant return of rock'n'roll warhorses some may be craving, and the absence of any monstrously huge numbers will leave many wanting. But this is Depeche stocktaking the damage done and licking old wounds. With so many hands on the decks, it seems a retro-fuelled direction has emerged by cannibalising their own history. Now if only they could finally bring themselves around for an Aussie tour...