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Album Review: Depeche Mode - Spirit

Mac McNaughton
StarStarHalf Star

"We need Depeche Mode to once more cattle prod the masses."

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With politics, faiths and all sorts of devotions readying the world for the various hand-baskets from hell, surely we need Depeche Mode to once more cattle prod the masses.

Except, on their 14th album, they don't. There are classic Depeche elements which gel beautifully — only Dave Gahan can commit so passionately to Martin Gore's unsurprisingly scornful lyric sheet, and Cover Me's transformation from traditional gothic lament to hypnotic Tron-esque atmospherics is magnificent, but James Ford's (Simian Mobile Disco) almost totalitarian production mostly reduces Gahan to meekly pealing from a soapbox rather than commanding from a mighty pedestal.