Depeche Mode hopes new CD gets people thinking

By MARK KENNEDY

AP Entertainment Writer

NEW YORK

Depeche Mode’s new album kicks off with a dire warning that we’re going backward as a society. Things go quickly downhill from there.

“Spirit” then tells us we’ve been lied to and advocates revolution, convicts everyone of treason and urges selfish scum to turn their guns on themselves – and that’s just the first four songs.

“First and foremost, we wanted to make a fun album,” deadpans chief songwriter Martin Gore. “That was a joke.”

The gloomy British electronic trio resurfaced this month with its first new music in four years and the timing seems impeccable. The dozen new dark songs seem the perfect soundtrack to a world rocked by Brexit and Donald Trump.

“It’s a little bit of a heavy listen,” acknowledges lead singer Dave Gahan. “Look, that’s what we do. It’s about creating these atmospheres with this backdrop of the world we’re living in.”

“Spirit” continues the band’s evolution in alternative-rock under the new guidance of producer James Ford, who has worked with Florence and the Machine and the Arctic Monkeys.

Band member Andy Fletcher said Ford, who also played drums on many of the tracks, managed to “freshen us up a bit.”

The songs are drenched in dread, slithering synths and strong hooks, exploring everything from trickle-down economics to heartbreak.

Gore, who had a hand in nine of the tracks, said the album might sound like a reaction to recent political and cultural shocks but was actually written in the second half of 2015 and early 2016.

“The world was still in a mess then and it was quite depressing to me. I felt that I couldn’t just ignore it. If I was going to actually write and be honest to myself I had to kind of like face it,” he said.

“I wanted to say that I feel that we’ve lost our way a bit – that mankind has lost its way spiritually. I’m not talking from any denomination here. I just mean in a general sense and by pointing that out, maybe it just gets people to think a bit.”

Depeche Mode will go on the road – their Live Nation-backed, 28-show North American tour starts in Salt Lake City in August (it does not include Cleveland or Pittsburgh) – mixing the new songs with their go-to anchors, including “I Feel You” and “Walking In My Shoes.”

Depeche Mode was part of a wave of English pop-synthesizer bands to sweep into America in the 1980s with light-hearted songs like “Just Can’t Get Enough.” They matured with edgier, socially conscious tunes like “People Are People” before hitting big success with 1990’s “Violator,” which produced the single “Personal Jesus.”