John Doe
CRITIC
Playing The Angel
Somewhere along the way, after the release of industrial rockish Songs of Faith & Devotion in 1993, Depeche Mode or maybe just Martin Gore decided that DM would discard its ace, namely the band's supreme tunefulness and mature into a band that played subtlety as its main calling card. While the willingness of a band to evolve is surely a postive development, this move also seemed to mark the decline of Gore as a tunemeister for the output that DM put out after Songs could, at best, be described as mediocre.
1997's Ultra was about as underwhelming an DM offering as humanly possible. Sure, the band's new and improved production was informed by the latest technological clicks, swishes and effects but it looked and sounded suspiciously like the emperor's new clothes. The album, despite its updatedness, was devoid of tunes and laborious to sit through. 2001's release, Exciter, lowered the bar even further. Indeed, Exciter must surely be one of the worst misnomers in the history of music. Flatliner would have been a much more befitting title.
Hence, we now come to DM's latest release, Playing the Angel. Will this album restore DM's much battered reputation? Is it the comeback to form that so many critics have lauded it to be? I am mixed in my assessment of this. How good this album is really depends on which era of DM's output you are comparing with? Yes, Angel is DM's best album in a decade. No, it can barely compare with DM's golden years.
Opener A Pain That I'm Used To, begins with a wail of loud, distorted and heavily disorientating feedback that harks back to the Songs album...or so one thinks. Until the listener is soon plugged back into a slowburn of a melody that is, very much, in line with the band's current mode of understated tune construction. It's a fine, toe-tapping introduction by all means but greatness wouldn't beckon it for company.
John the Revelator then comes on, in uptempo Music For the Masses mood. Bombastic and aided by a swelling call-and-response chorus, John is the one track on this album coming closest to matching DM's golden era songs. It probably wouldn't look out of place anywhere on a pre-1993 DM LP. First single Precious, while lacking John's immediacy, is a steady grower that etches itself into one's consciousness. These two tracks are, surely, the highlights of an album that moves steadily without offering any surprises or delights.
Much has been made of David Gahan's contributions in this album, a first, if I'm not mistaken, for any DM effort. Gahan acquaints himself well, alongside Gore. His work here is largely indistinguishable from that of Gore's. This is not necessarily a bad thing, considering the calibre of Gore as a songwriter...but then again, Gore hasn't been good for quite a long while.
Sharp-eyed readers must, by now, have realised that I have lurched wildly from talking about the quality of individual tracks to a commentary about David Gahan's songs on the album. This must say something about the impression that the rest of the unmentioned songs had made on me that I've had to change subjects. For sure, the likes of Suffer Well (A David Gahan song) and Lilian are nice and radio-friendly, but like French Fries, they are consumed and dispersed from memory the moment they evaporate from my senses. Satisfactory but unmemorable sensory feeds.
How would I rate Playing the Angel then?
To be honest here, I had been tempted to award it a 7/10 on the basis that DM is better here than they have been for a good number of years now, but to award that on a basis of relativity against a low benchmark is ultimately an insult. The truth is that the quality of songs here, whether stand-alone or compared to the high water mark set, are nondescript. From a band that had produced some outstanding songs during its existence, I believe we are surely entitled to expect a little more.
6/10
John Doe criticised on 10:01 AM.
