Sony Music Depeche Mode - Black Celebration

1986 ( remaster 2016 )

Alan Wilder, Andrew Fletcher,  Dave Gahan,  Martin Gore

Remastered By – Simon Heyworth
Lacquer Cut By – Mike Marsh

[ sputnik ] : Even as far back as 1986, Depeche Mode had been on quite a journey. Their debut album, a cacophony of upbeat tinkly-bonk sounds and one-fingered synth riffs, had made the UK top ten. Then, their principle songwriter (Vince Clarke) left, and the remaining members spent three albums experimenting with political sloganeering, samplers, metallic clangs and leather jackets in an attempt to carve out their own identity.
A cult band even at this point, Depeche finally made sense of it all with Black Celebration, a step away from the commercial leanings of its predecessor, Some Great Reward. Martin Gore finally came into his own as a songwriter, and the ever-increasing talents of Alan Wilder, aided by paternal figure Daniel Miller, sculpted the band's craft into one of the darkest and most influential albums of the eighties.

It all starts with the title track, 'Black Celebration', which blends the up-tempo feel of the previous album with rather morbid lyrics - "Your optimistic eyes/Seem like paradise/To someone like/Me". 'Fly On The Windscreen' is even darker; a cold, rhythmic synth riff nestles up against lyrics like - "Death Is Everywhere/There Are Lambs For The Slaughter/Waiting To Die".

But it's not all doom and gloom - this is an album of feeling, and Gore's relationship with Christina Friederich comes to the fore on this album; indeed, this album has more Gore-sung ballads on it than any Depeche have ever produced. 'Sometimes' is remarkably similar in style to 'Somebody' from the last album, albeit more ethereal, while 'A Question Of Lust' is second only to 'Home' in terms of Depeche ballads. It swells with feeling, and adds an optimistic edge to an otherwise brooding album. 'It Doesn't Matter Two' is oh-so-avant-garde, yet impossibly avoids the pitfall of seeming pretentious - it remains one of the highlights of the album. 'A Question Of Time' follows, reminding you that the Basildon boys can still rock to a funky, thrashing (though processed) guitar riff. 'Stripped' is the centrepiece of the album, and a definitive example of how Depeche Mode can sound at once depressing and utterly uplifting.

[ Rolling Stone ] : Routinely dismissed as a band of synth-pop robots, Depeche Mode actually uses its machines to make some of the most human sounds around. Black Celebration is certainly this British quartet’s most melodic effort to date: the clanging disco-concrete fusion of early LPs like Construction Time Again has mellowed into a brand of brooding, romantic music only hinted at on last year’s Some Great Reward. “I haven’t felt so alive in years,” gushes singer Dave Gahan on “But Not Tonight,” this LP’s ghostly closer, although for composer-lyricist Martin Gore, even celebration is pretty bleak.

Gore dissects his gloomy obsessions with wit and intelligence. He’s abetted by his bandmates, inventive technicians who understand that machines weren’t meant to sound like souped-up electric organs. Despite its campy horror-show title, “Fly on the Windscreen — Final” is the sort of matter-of-fact meditation on mortality most people flash on behind the wheel of a car. A bank of synths buzz ominously through the verses of “Fly,” amplifying the unease, then whoosh gratefully when the first chorus reaches for life’s only solace: “Come here kiss me NOW.”

Most of these ditties are unabashed love songs, albeit brutally honest — quirky ones that pick apart popular notions of emotional independence (“A Question of Lust”) and adolescent sex (“A Question of Time,” “World Full of Nothing”) to an itchy, mechanized beat. Songs like these and some serious image-mongering have won Depeche Mode a loyal teen following, appropriately enough. But underneath their bleached-blond, black-leather pose lurks musical maturity and a wry sensibility deserving of a wider (read adult) audience.