2023 Memento Mori

The sign language of Anton Corbijn's cover designs has been known for decades in a rather subtle way. The previous album, "Spirit", was issued in a cryptic art with boots and flags as a metaphor. Loosely interpreted, the album title "Memento Mori" means: Be aware of your mortality and enjoy the time you have left.
"Memento Mori", on the other hand, is represented by Corbijn with funerary plants in the form of angel wings. On the back, a skull and crossbones on a black bistro table commemorates band member Andrew Fletcher, who sadly passed away too soon. However, the black metal chairs next to the table are empty, in the sense that "everyone has to leave eventually." The black and white visualization of the Dutchman Corbijn could not be clearer. The album sounds correspondingly melancholic and gloomy, and not only once does one feel as if one is at heaven's gate before the Last Judgment, just before the lights go out ("Before We Drown", "Soul With Me", "Speak To Me"). If there wasn't always a little bit of hope and Dave Gahan made it clear that the hourglass can be turned around, the inclined listener would probably melt into melancholy like Salvator Dali's clocks and concentrate on the ending. But the seeds of knowledge continue to sprout with every song, spend the time you have left with your fellow man, the best you can. A lot of electronica reminiscent of the eighties characterize the songs. The songs are often performed by booming basslines and producer James Ford was certainly very busy bringing the author's constellations, which were as diverse this time as ever before, in a style-defining way. In the well-known way, some songs, like the wonderful opening "My Cosmos Is Mine", were written only by Gore, who starts with squeaky techno elements and is carried by pulsating bass lines and also brings a bit of his solo. excursions A calm and fresh start. "Wagging Tongue", on the other hand, is one of the few songs in the band's history that Gore and Gahan wrote together, which opens with an open keyboard line that fades into a fat bass line and is very melodic in the chorus with background. the voice of Martin. Lines like "watch die from another angle, I'll find you by the river, maybe on the other side" leave a chilling feeling, in the sense of: see you in the afterlife. Live in Munich, the song was arranged much more narrowly. Nothing more needs to be said about the first one, which is already being considered a Depeche classic, except that the Gore/Butler song stands out enormously from the album and enhances the new collaboration to something unique, which in this way is also not heard on all DM albums.