DEPECHE MODE
Ultra
MUTE
Poor Depeche Mode. No sooner do they wangle a 'gritty realism' camera filter on Top of the Pops than TOTP2 digs out 16-year-old footage of 'Just Can't Get Enough' and everyone with pop sensibilities yearns for the days of yore. Dave Gahan elicits a level of previously unthought of respect from the public for kicking the class As, only to undermine it by citing starfucker and charlatan extraordinaire Amanda De Cadenet as a decisive factor in his rehab. Twelfth album, 'Ultra', is released in the shadow of U2's 'Pop'. Need we go any further?
Surprisingly, yes. While hopes of any grand metamorphosis may have been quashed by the mode-by-numbers drone of first single 'Barrel of a Gun', producer Tim Simenon's influence elsewhere has succeeded in eking out some genuinely touching moments rather than just the usual bombastic melodrama. The stunning 'Home' takes its lead from Garbage's 'Milk', melding an increasingly vulnerable rhythm to achingly vulnerable vocals from Martin Gore, while minor-key strings envelop the track like a comfort blanket. After the closing 'Insight', a quasi-religious call for salvation with a shuffling beat and backing vocals that sound like Annie Lennox, an untitled hidden track provides two minutes of ominous, oriental soundtrack fodder, as if to suggest that there are no greater forces at work here than getting something out ready for the next American tour.
Score: 2/5
Soundbite: "'Ultra': absorbing, but no wings"
[you need to have a knowledge of British tampon adverts to understand this!]
EMMA MORGAN
[Elsewhere, there is a picture of Martin and Dave from 1993 with the caption "DEPECHE MODE - They make the Cure look good"]
Select (UK magazine), May 1997
Thanks to David McKain
