Depeche Mode
Black Celebration

THE REVIEW

Dark and very distant voices, almost subliminal, the ticking of a bell growing louder and louder, deep and sinister sounds intertwining in a healthy harmony, Gahan's voice entering and singing "Let's have a black celebration tonight."
This is how the fifth studio album of the four boys from Basildon begins, entirely written by his majesty Martin Gore in Berlin during a particularly unique phase of his life, with almost minimal but touching lyrics.

This 1986 album produced by Gareth Jones between London and Berlin, will remain the last work entirely played with electronic instruments, an album that will mark the end of a period in terms of production and style. Eleven songs in the original version plus some bonus tracks in the subsequent CD versions, where the sounds and metallic percussions of the previous "Some Great Reward" are almost completely abandoned, instead we find a unity and compactness of sound that is incredible, yes the sound is the peculiarity of the entire work, dark, gloomy and decadent, subtle and deep, gothic and nostalgic.
This album is perhaps the only one by Depeche Mode where the songs, apart from some exceptions (Stripped, A Question of Time) do not contain true hit pieces, which has always been a norm in previous works, and certainly even more so in future ones. This should not mean that the entire work is inferior; on the contrary, the songs are almost all of excellent level, perhaps more leveled but always excellent, like the sweet "Sometimes" – piano, voice (M.Gore) with choirs that feel very much like gospel, and the romantic "Here is the House" or the physical and political as well as metropolitan "Stripped," an icon of that period, not to forget "Fly on the Windscreen" or the nostalgic "A Question of Lust" and not even the sweet and deep "It Doesn't Matter Two," also performed in the latest tour. And how can one forget Gore's lyrics, especially in "New Dress," where he recites this ambiguous phrase: "Sex-drived husband murders wife... Princess Di is wearing a new dress" with a chorus that goes... "You can't change the world/ But you can change the facts/ And when you change the facts/ You change points of view/ If you change points of view/ You may change a vote/ And when you change a vote/ You may change the world..."; or in "Stripped": "Let me hear you/ Make decisions/ Without your television/ Let me hear you speaking/ Just for me..."

Just these lines should suffice to convey the level of the album. Anyone who has not yet had the chance to listen to it and is a fan of this genre cannot let it slip away, this that could have been the last work of DM (rumors at the time said it was written by Gore in total disagreement with the rest of the band, which was on the brink of breaking up) but fortunately it was not, thanks to the fans who once again sided with that little (and perhaps unpleasant to some) man, who knows and has always known how to write music, managing to make the most of one of the most beautiful voices still around. Give it a listen!