DEPECHE MODE

Steven Dalton

Memento Mori A post-Fletch Mode channel grief into deluxe autumnal electro-blues. A sombre landmark for Basildon’s stadium-rocking techno-pop titans, ‘Memento Mori’ is the first Depeche Mode album without Andrew ‘Fletch’ Fletcher, who died suddenly last year. Recording began before Fletch’s passing, so it would be fanciful to extrapolate too much from that funereal title. Mode albums typically come in 50 shades of deluxe misery, after all. But this is unquestionably an autumnal, brooding, latecareer affair with a deliciously rich, echo-drenched, electroclassical production (it was co-produced by Marta Salogni, whose previous credits include Björk and M.I.A.). While Dave Gahan and Martin Gore tap into their A-ha side on the chiming synth-pop gem Ghosts Again, soul-weary melancholia is their default setting on dreamy, swooping epics like Speak to Me. The best of…

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Sound + Image (Digital) - 1 Issue, May - June 2023

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