Depeche Mode

On the eve of synth-pop's ice age, the nightmare of extinction sparked panic. Some managed to save themselves in time, reinventing themselves as sophisticated crooners (David Sylvian, Marc Almond), or flirting with the emerging techno sound (New Order), or even finding themselves accidental pioneers of the future post-rock scene (Talk Talk). But most succumbed, sinking into the swamp of easy listening (Human League, Abc) and arena-rock (Simple Minds, Duran Duran), or else retreating in good order before the catastrophe hit (Ultravox, Tears For Fears, Eurythmics & co.).

Depeche Mode, despite the internal turmoil caused by singer Dave Gahan's struggles with depression and drugs, kept their cool. And they even managed to pull off a miracle: escaping extinction while simultaneously becoming standard-bearers of the new era, perfecting that music for the masses already outlined on the 1987 album of the same name. A double somersault with barely any precedent in the history of rock. And practically none in the history of synth-pop.

"Violator", then, is Depeche Mode's insurance policy for the future, the album that definitively transforms them into stars, thanks to a sound that escapes the axe of the adjective "dated" while retaining all the traits that had made it unmistakable: the glacial pulses of the synths, the violet-tinged shades of the sounds and the claustrophobic atmospheres, as well as those killer choruses that had already flooded the charts of the Eighties.

The feat succeeds mainly thanks to a cold fusion between the synthetic sounds of the past and a new blues-rock vein, under the skilled direction of producer Flood, capable of forging an extraordinarily airy and thunderous sound, in which played instruments and electronics coexist in symbiosis. Also decisive was the contribution, at the mixing stage, of François Kevorkian, already the architect of "Electric Café" by Kraftwerk.

The dark and post-punk legacy, which had always stayed alive in the DNA of the Basildon boys, thus projects itself into the new decade in the form of unsettling electro-rock panels, in which one can perceive the first stirrings of the nascent dance and techno scenes of the '90s, and in which the guitars, though less overbearing than on "Music For The Masses", inject fresh doses of neurosis and paranoia. Exemplary in this sense is the mega-hit "Personal Jesus", which takes off from an obsessive blues-guitar refrain before opening out into a scorching boogie, a sort of tribal electro-funk-gospel, whose appeal will ensnare even Johnny Cash (author of a stunning cover), as well as various DJs who will churn out remixes of it non-stop. Nothing to do, however, with the caustic blasphemies of "Blasphemous Rumours": Martin Gore finds inspiration in Priscilla Presley's book "Elvis and Me", to tell how the love of a lifetime can somehow embody one's own "personal Jesus" ("Someone to hear your prayers/ Someone who cares").

The album's other masterpiece (and perhaps of Depeche Mode's entire career, as well as their best-selling single ever) is the aching elegy of "Enjoy The Silence", where a linear guitar riff and a disco beat frame a sumptuous melodic opening, delivered with mastery by Gahan: not a virtuoso singer, but certainly the perfect voice for this kind of sound, warm and unsettling at once. But Depeche Mode owe their thanks above all to Alan Wilder and Flood, who pushed in the studio to beef up and speed up the slow harmonium ballad Gore had conceived in the demo, turning it into the sweeping final dance-romance. As if the quality of the music weren't enough, the song's success was also helped along by a fortunate video directed by Anton Corbijn, featuring a king-like Gahan carrying a deckchair (a tribute to Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's "The Little Prince"), moving through various settings (from the snow-covered Swiss Alps to Britain's Balmoral and on to Portugal).

But "Violator" doesn't live merely off the reflected light of its two monster hits. It's a perfect mosaic, in which every tile serves the overall design. Starting with the opener "World In My Eyes", with its relentless drum-machine beat and the icy breath of the keyboards smuggling in an entire decade of synth music, continuing with the murky atmospheres of "Sweetest Perfection", in which Gore's vocals forge a new "Black Celebration" of morbid fixations and assorted obsessions ("When I need a drug in me/ and it brings out the thug in me/ feel something tugging me"), and with the explosive electro-blues of "Policy Of Truth", the third single and instant classic that takes flight on its heavily pumped bass and the forceful slide-guitar riff: in live form it will become an arena-filler.

Amid so many instant knockout anthems, what stands out is the delicate ambient pulse of "Waiting For The Night", the murky sensuality of "Blue Dress" — the classic reflective moment that Gore manages to carve out on every tracklist (from the evergreen "Somebody" onward) — and the enveloping strings of "Halo", sealing a new form of synthetic lied not so far removed from the future Bjork of "Homogenic", while even a seemingly minor track like "Clean" consolidates this new idea of electronic music, as dark and refined as the album's handsome black-and-white booklet, designed by Corbijn.

Invigorated by the "mainstream breakthrough" of "Violator", Depeche Mode's career will breeze through two more decades with ease, drawing to the former underground pioneers from Basildon new generations of fans, as well as oceanic crowds at their blockbuster concerts, as seen in the recent Delta Machine Tour.

"Violator" will, however, remain the English band's best-selling album, with over fifteen million copies sold worldwide (3.9 million in the United States alone). Thanks in part to this record, synth-pop will shed its skin as an ephemeral phenomenon, confined chronologically and geographically, and become — following the Kraftwerk model — a universal koiné, capable of uniting multiple languages and transcending eras and trends. Paradoxical, for a band that had chosen to call itself "passing fad".

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05/01/2014