Construction Time Again

Performer: Depeche Mode
Engineer: Gareth Jones
Producer: Daniel Miller; Depeche Mode
Distributor: WEA (Distributor)

Notes: Depeche Mode: David Gahan (vocals); Martin Gore (keyboards, synthesizer, background vocals); Andrew Fletcher, Alan Wilder (keyboards, synthesizer). Recorded at The Garden, London, England. Having proven his abilities as a pop craftsman on the previous year's A BROKEN FRAME, DM main songwriter Martin Gore gets down to the business of developing a new sonic language for himself and his bandmates on CONSTRUCTION TIME. Earlier in its career, Depeche Mode tried to make its synthesizer-only arrangements seem warm and fuzzy, but here the band embraces the Kraftwerk-pioneered tradition of exploiting the synthesizer's inherent inorganic qualities for their intrinsic beauty. In addition to straying further from the poppy approach of previous albums, the group incorporates industrial-oriented sounds as an important part of the arrangements, lending an ominous, machine-like tone to many of the songs. The once-chipper group's growing disenchantment with the outside world begins to flower here as well, most notably on the anti-music biz observations of "Everything Counts."

Q (8/95, pp.138-139) - 4 Stars - Excellent - "...Machine-made drums take on an ostentatious inventiveness, the themes (monetarism, deforestation, armageddon) are writ large..."

Depeche Mode (French for "hurried fashion") was one of the first and best of the British synth-pop bands, combining breathless, melodic pop with perky electronics. With main songwriter Vince Clarke's departure for Yaz, Martin Gore took the reigns, and the band's sound became darker and harder, though still true to their trademark synth-driven accessibility. The post-Clarke band's moody dance-pop brought Depeche Mode worldwide superstardom in the second half of the '80s. The band survived overexposure, drug problems, and all the other traditional rock-star travails, and came out older and wiser, entering the 2000s as a fully functioning, mature unit.

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