Depeche Mode – ‘Memento Mori’
Towards the end of 2022, a year that saw the tragic passing of their founding keyboardist Andy Fletcher, Depeche Mode announced their 15th studio album. Despite the title, Memento Mori, Latin for “reminder of death,” and the ubiquitous theme of death, Dave Gahan recently revealed that the album was mostly conceived prior to Fletcher’s unexpected death last May.
Memento Mori has been previewed by two singles, ‘Ghosts Again’ and ‘My Cosmos is Mine’. The former introduced the album with style as we heard the welcomed return of Martin Gore’s gritty synth sound and Gahan’s ghoulish lyrical whim. In the latter, they stretched their capable legs into similarly mystical territory with a more intense, anxious aura.
Now, we’re finally able to hear whether the full album lives up to its promising previews. After opening with ‘My Cosmos is Mine’, ‘Waggling Tongue’ brings us as close to ecstasy as Depeche Mode tend to venture. A genial synth pattern bears Gahan’s lyrics which claim comfortable residence in darkness: “You won’t do well to darken me / With your secrets and your lies / With your piercing cold silence / Relax, enjoy the ride”.
Although Depeche Mode remain loyal to their gothic synth-era-hangover sound in Memento Mori, the textural variation throughout gives fans plenty of unchartered ground to cover. In ‘My Favourite Stranger’, a personal highlight, Gore employs oppressive, industrial soundscapes that periodically assault the bouncing rhythm with a hailstorm of doubt complementary to Gahan’s angst-ridden lyrics: “Some perfect stranger / Speaks when I speak / Walks in my footsteps / And talks in my sleep”.
Injecting the album with a crucial dose of variety is ‘Soul With Me’, which, as the title suggests, hears Gahan take on a more soulful style following its hauntingly ecclesiastical intro. “I’m heading for the ever-after / Leaving my problems and the world’s disasters / I’m heading for the open sky,” Gahan sings, revealing one of the album’s most defining moments.
As the listener grows to appreciate, Memento Mori doesn’t react to the subject of mortality with humanity’s hardwired fear and loathing. Instead, it invites us to humour death as an inevitable and natural part of life harbouring hidden virtues. This message flows potently through the lyrics of ‘Soul With Me’ but also in the soaring moments of emotional juxtaposition throughout the album’s instrumental palette – as Gahan put it in a recent conversation with Steve Lamacq, there are moments of “melancholy joy”.
Towards the album’s conclusion, ‘People Are Good’ and ‘Never Let Me Go’ offer a fond throwback to the Depeche Mode classics from which they borrow the first part of their titles. The former brings danceable energy to proceedings with a beat that would fit curiously well on the band’s 1981 debut album, Speak & Spell. The latter reprises the industrial hailstorm of ‘My Favourite Stranger’ in another salient moment for the album.
The gatekeepers of gothic synth haven’t reinvented the wheel in Memento Mori, but they’ve given nuanced and considered treatment to their distinctive sound. In this chapter, Depeche Mode have introduced new depth to their morbid allusions, exhuming light from darkness and finding comfort in reality. The album is a triumphant return to the studio, undoubtedly boasting some of their finest work since 1993’s Songs of Faith and Devotion.
