“So when I hear something backwards, it takes me off into a sort of trippy mood.” “Having taken psychedelic drugs in my youth, it reminds me of listening to music in that state of mind everything sounds backwards,” he told Keyboard in 1993. It also indulged Wilder’s penchant for backwards sounds, with a reversed piano. Martin Gore’s slurred slide guitar line interrupted by Wilder’s clanking “rap-like drum loop”, the ethereal soft synths that momentarily reframe the lyrics and Dave Gahan’s pleading cry, mesh to form a vast, many-splendoured production. One more in the name of salvation, Mercy In You is a classic mix of the dark and light shades from the Depeche palette. They achieved the effect by recording each band member separately, but in the same space, with organ, drums, clapping and percussion. “The idea of that track was to enhance the gospel feel that the song originally had without going into pastiche, and to try to create the effect of it being played in a room, in a space,” said Wilder to Keyboard Magazine. Both Martin Gore – in terms of his mastery of songwriting – and Dave Gahan – in terms of delivering an utterly compelling vocal – are at their absolute pinnacle.Ĭondemnation takes on a hymnal quality thanks to its super-slow tempo and an ever-present chain-gang hum, both of which add to its unique processional quality. The single made No.14 in the UK.Ī sermon of bitter acceptance preached over a solemn gospel march, Condemnation embodies the shadowy appeal of the album as a whole.
Depeche mode songs of faith and devotion live trial#
“Martin played the guitar, I played bass and we ran a rhythm machine – this was just to get the basic feel for the track – and after much trial and error, the chorus bassline and guitar pattern fell into place.”įlood and Wilder then constructed the main riff, before adding loops, string arrangements and various studio trickery. “It was constructed using an unusual method for us, i.e. With human frailty and judgement as its principal themes, this brooding second single is widely considered one of Martin Gore’s finest creations. It’s clear the Depeche Mode of old had left the room. The song reached No.8 in the UK and was the group’s highest-charting single worldwide. “We hoped it would surprise people and make them curious about the rest of the album.” And so it did.
“The main reason for the choice was that the track had attitude and was radically different to what we had done before,” stated Alan Wilder. Alan Wilder’s live drums were sampled, channelled through synthesizers and finally aligned into sequenced loops to exhilarating effect. From the ear-piercing synth that introduces the whole shebang to the grinding, ever-present blues-rock riff around which the track circles, this exhibited the new performance-weighted manifesto. Read more: Making Depeche Mode’s Speak & Spell Read more: Top 40 Depeche Mode songsĪ clear statement of intent, first single and album opener I Feel You initiated a new chapter for the band. Not only had the musical climate shifted considerably with the scuzzy guitars of grunge cranked up in their absence but, far more importantly, here stood four altered souls who’d barely crossed paths since emerging from the tour bus. For one, they faced a wall of intimidating proportions with the need to follow up – or even equal – the success of Violator. Understandably, the four human beings at the centre of the maelstrom had been run ragged by the whole affair.Īlmost two years later, when Martin Gore, Dave Gahan, Alan Wilder and Andy Fletcher reconvened in a London bar shortly before they were due to kick-start the whole process all over again, circumstances had changed considerably. The album won triple platinum status and cemented the group as major-league stars.
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