ULTRA REVIEWS
"The comeback single after near disintegration is
surprisingly good, producer Tim Simenon shoving the chunky groove right up front
while the keyboards do exactly what you'd expect. A glance at the label though,
reveals that the keyboards on this nearly entirely electronic record were
actually played by a session musician and a hired programmer, sole remaining
musician Martin Gore inexplicably remaining in the background. This would have
been single of the week, if only they had made it themselves."
"Do You mean this horny creep" are Dave Gahan's first words back from the
dead. While you'd like to forget the overdoses, turmoil and general image
tarnishing that Mode endured, there's no doubt the tension helped create this
master-stroke. Reclaiming their dark industrial sound from the likes of Garbage,
NIN and U2, Depeche Mode release the latest in a long, long line of clever,
wonderful singles. Gets better and goes deeper with every listen. Enjoy the
brilliant instrumental Painkiller plus two BOAG remixes here.......Mode Rock.
***Single of the Week ***"
"Seventeen years together, 30 million albums sold, and here comes another to crank the profit margin one notch higher. Except this time, it's not _just_ another Depeche Mode album, because if it were it wouldn't arouse such ghoulish fascination. 'Ultra' is more than that, it's the culmination of a festering melodrama that could have resulted in death, but in the end settled for a near-fatal heart attack and some lengthy cold turkey.
This album is at least partly the product of one of the most harrowing rock'n'roll sagas in recent memory. It's the tale of an unassuming quartet transformed into a colossal financial machine designed to bring gravitas to the masses: four cherubs from Basildon who were lauded as deities in America - only to discover they couldn't handle it. Kinkier than U2, but not as perverse as Nine Inch Nails, Depeche Mode spent the early part of the '90s driving their juggernaut of angst across the States in an increasingly frenzied attempt to obliterate all memory of their early career. And it proved startlingly successful, because when the time came to start recording this album they had transformed beyond all recognition: they'd become farcical Sunset Strip burnouts. Singer Dave Gahan was hauling his body around LA shooting it full of heroin, coke and water, Alan Wilder had acrimoniously quit the band, and everyone else was back in London trying to write new material. As backgrounds to writing albums go, this was one of the most traumatic. Yet the result is not a sleazy electro classic, but a near replica of past achievements.
'Ultra' is neither an 'Exile on Main Street' orgy of sprawling excess nor an introspective of personal tragedy - and suffers because of it. That, however, shouldn't be any surprise. Gahan might have lived the life, but Martin Gore wrote the songs - and before Gahan went AWOL, this was meant to be the most ambitious project yet. He might have been initially inspired by the no-smiles austerity of Kraftwerk and DAF, but this time around he intended to make an album that encompassed an entire century's worth of music, everything from blues and gospel right through to country. There's not much evidence on Ultra, however, that such a grandiose scheme ever got off the ground. For all the crackling ambient synths and treated guitars, this is a perversely _comforting_ Depeche Mode record. The choice of collaborators is impeccable (Can drummer Jaki Liebezeit plays on 'The Bottom Line', Anton Corbijn did the cover and producer Tim Simenon added the contemporary hip-hop sheen), but the music remains as creepingly familiar as ever. There is no dramatic reinvention, and as such we're left with an album that's every bit as flawed as its predecessors.
If these songs are about Gahan's decline as seen through Gore's eyes, then
they're written in such blank and generalized terms as to be almost worthless as
insights into his condition. As usual, Gore's songs feed us a revolving roster
of crying souls, burning bodies and martyred lovers - and, as usual, it's
vaguely intriguing, but hardly essential listening. Indeed, the inclusion of a
jazz pastiche entitled 'Jazz Thieves' tells you much about the sort of album
that Gore has constructed. Still, once you've acclimatized to the absence of
documentary distress and radical innovation, there's plenty of scope to admire
Gore's typically gloomy preoccupations and gleaming, hi-tech song structures.
'Barrel of a Gun''s brutal dissection of addiction, the plaintive steel guitars
of 'The Bottom Line' and the scuffed beats and thudding cacophony of 'Useless'
are all the result of Depeche Mode's ever-expanding awareness of their craft and
their darkly sophisticated use of technology. But it's still all to clinical.
Issues are skirted, poetry is attempted and we're left clutching another
installment of stadium-orientated angst, at a time when we were expecting
reflective intimacy. The needle rarely comes anywhere near this record: four
years away and you'd never know anything had gone wrong. This just sounds like
business as usual. Against all the odds, 'Ultra' _is_ just another Depeche Mode
record. See you at Madison Square Garden in six months then. (6) [out of 10]"
"This album should never have been made. No, that's not a critical summation at all. Rather, a new Depeche Mode CD-- it's 12th and first studio album in four years-- couldn't be guaranteed considering the crises facing it's distinctive lead singer, Dave Gahan. Not unexpectedly, Depeche Mode sometimes resembles a 12-step addicts program on ULTRA, with numerous songs crying out in pain. There's one measure of hope amid the gloom on "Home", were Gahan sounds remorseful and grateful: "I thank you for bringing me here/ For showing me home/ For singing these tears/ Finally I've found that I belong here."
Yet the three members of Depeche Mode (minus departed drummer Alan Wilder) have rallied to craft an album that overall could resonate with longtime fans who never cared for the group's foray into electronic guitar rock with the preceding Songs of Faith and Devotion. ULTRA (due out Tuesday) is a return, of sorts, to the electro-pop sound of it's biggest hit, 1990's Violator., while U.K. electronic dance producer Tim Simenon (aka Bomb the Bass) gives ULTRA a steady, slowly rhythmic and modern feel. The caustic lead track "Barrel of a Gun", with it's techno synths, metallic guitars and distorted vocals, is ULTRA's one misstep as it recalls the music of nine inch nails-- a sonic gimmick that borders on cliche.
But then Depeche Mode settles into more familiar, dark and melodic territory
with "The Love Thieves" and subsequent songs. Just when the music threatens to
become dull, the pace too labored, the group pulls out a sizeable hook-- the
weeping guitar on the lushly orchestrated "Home", the gnawing guitars on
"Useless", the catchy vocal chorus of "It's No Good"-- and the pitch-black ULTRA
sinks in."
Miami Herald (April 11th 1997)
"Painkiller starts with a repetitive sub-bassline that slinks into a
suspenseful sound bed of swaying clanks, distorted squeals, and a moody beat.
Mission impossible meets techno at its leisurely pace."
"It has been a long haul for this 16-year-old English synth-pop band. Over the past few years, Depeche Mode has peaked by filling the Rose Bowl and plummeted to stardom's darkest depths, bottoming out with the departure of Alan Wilder and singer Dave Gahan's heroin addiction and sad, headline-grabbing OD and suicide attempt. It is truly remarkable that this album happened--period. The against-all-odds, underdog aura that surrounds "Ultra" makes you want to love it as much as, say, Steve Earle's noble resurrection.
Despite a talented roster of guests--including production wizard Bomb the
Bass (a.k.a. Tim Simenon) behind the boards, ex-Living Colour bassist Doug
Wimbish and Can percussionist Jaki Leibzeit--it never approaches anything that
inspirational. Nothing much has changed, except Simenon's emotive, multilayered,
high-tech sound, which would be far better suited for a subtler band but tends
to wash out any hooks on this gloom-and-doom-y album. "Ultra" never surpasses
the seductive dungeon feel and gripping, tormented lyrics of its first track,
"Barrel of a Gun." Unsteady, lyrically weak, but occasionally interesting
(especially on the eerie, cultish "Sister of Night" and "It's No Good," a nearly
nubile, bittersweet reminder of the band's happier days), "Ultra" won't woo any
new fans grooving on electronica's latest wave. For now, however, it will cheer
longtime supporters happy to have a band called Depeche Mode at all."
"If nothing else, DM is definitely contrary. Back when guitars were all the rage, they stayed stubbornly electronic. Now that machines are the next big thing, the band mixes in more hard guitar chords into "Ultra" than they've had for years. The result is a deft, stirring album, containing some of the band's best songs, with hits "It's No Good" and "Barrel of a Gun" among them. The band has always been able to put out personal touches into what is by definition often a cold genre.
Less bombastic and more intimate than the big hits the band is known for - - "Personal Jesus", "Never let me down again" - "Ultra" takes a personal approach. Songwriter Martin Gore says it plays a morality play; singer Dave Gahan says he and Gore have such a similar background that the songs can't help but sound like the tribulations the band has gone through in the past few years. "Sister of Night" could be about either a women or a drug. "Useless", "It's No Good", and "Barrel of a Gun speaks of betrayal, broken friendships, broken relationships, broken lives. Yet it all ends up with the uplifting "Insight", where the singer has a flash of clarity and something is learned through all the damage and heartache.
If you want to buy Gore and Gahan's line that they just happened to write
this album at this critical juncture in the band's life - life well, be my
guest. But they shouldn't shy from that. In an era when so much music comes from
manufactured angst, the band's real-life dramas have given a genuine spark to
its work since "Black Celebration". That Gore writes this "morality play"
without being condemning or preachy shows how he's grown as a subtle lyricist
since his "People are People" days. There's a bit of wasted space and filler -
two listed instrumental tracks as well as one hidden instrumental. But overall
the band's fans - more importantly, nonfans - will find an album that shows
growth through adversity. (4 out of 5)."