Collegiate Times

Picture yourself driving in a rickety old Lincoln four-door convertible, one that looks suspiciously like the one in which JFK was assassinated, but to avoid criticism, you lie and say that it was made several years after his death. The air is cold on your face and you wonder why you?re even driving a convertible on such a cold night. The car is an orchestra of noises; there?s a rhythmic ping noise coming from behind the dash, a repetitive clicking in the passenger side paneling and thick fuzz spewing from the speakers.

You?re driving down a long highway and you see a dirt road to the right that leads to an old refinery, lit up like a tiny city. You?re compelled by the thousands of dotted lights and the smell of oil, so you veer off the road and the Lincoln bumps its way to the factory. Then it starts raining. By now you?re driving through the factory, and just after the rain starts, there?s a huge explosion on the other side of the factory and a loud alarm goes off right around you.

Throughout all of this, your little brother is, for some reason, sitting in the backseat playing the original Mario Brothers on Nintendo and beating Bowser.

That just about sums up the sound of the new Depeche Mode album, and for that matter, most of the Depeche Mode sound.

Yes, the kings of ?80s industrial synthesized video game bloop pop are back with ?Playing the Angel,? their eleventh studio album. The band has developed a cult following over the past two decades and has been delivering music in their unique genre since then. And although the band blends several different aspects of several different genres, any listener can tell when he or she is listening to Depeche Mode.

The basis for the band?s sound is a version of industrial or synth-pop, and in no place is the industrial sound better expressed than in the band?s latest effort. ?A Pain That I?m Used To,? the album?s first song, begins with a loud, jarring, metallic alarm droning up and down. It?s a fairly solid indication of where you are as well as where you?re headed for the rest of the album. The album is ripe with factory metal beats and lyrics that are alarming in their contradiction to one another.

Some of these combinations are particularly positive and hopeful, like ?Macro,? where lead singer David Gahan?s even baritone describes a unique take on paradise and universal oneness: ?See the microcosm / In macro vision / Our bodies moving / With pure precision / One universal celebration / One evolution / One creation.? But even on ?Macro,? the music seems to suggest something different as the song burns with a certain apprehension and concern for this ideal future with its minor key chords and eerily repetitive blips and beeps.

Other songs seem to argue with one another, like how ?Precious,? the album?s first single, rings with apology; ?Angels with silver wings / Shouldn?t know suffering / I wish I could take the pain for you,? while ?Lillian? shakes with regret and anger; ?Oh Lillian / Look what you?ve done / You?ve stripped my heart / Ripped it apart / In the name of fun.?

It?s an interesting journey, at times hopeful, at times depressing, often personal and often distant. The moral is in the struggle through these moods, and that?s right where Depeche Mode likes to be.

The album?s creepiness might turn some listeners off, and sometimes the lyrics have that ?any-guy? charm, like Coldplay without the happiness. But more often than not, the images crumble beneath the weight of their own supposed drama and the Mode?s writing (predominantly from mastermind Martin Gore but with three tracks written by Gahan) can come off as juvenile and cheap. I like where the concepts go, but sometimes it feels like the lyrics were written by depressed teenagers grounded for jimmying open the old man?s liquor cabinet.

The album also suffers from just being a Depeche Mode album. The Mode?s sound has been abhorred by as many as it has been adored, and they really haven?t revitalized their sound all that much on this album. As Pitchfork Media?s Nitsuh Abebe put it, ?If you really are the sort of person who's been waiting with bated breath for a new Depeche Mode release, then don't worry: You'll love this. Dear everyone else: It's pretty okay.?

Agreed.