Memento Mori

They have conjured a collection of really strong songs about big subjects, delivered with sensitivity and conviction. Memento Mori stands with the best of their career.

While much of Memento Mori is thoughtful, and some of it visits the dark side, there is a great deal of positivity underpinning Depeche Mode’s work as a duo.

Gore and Gahan transform tragedy into something profound and universally relatable. Though not their most immediate offering, Memento Mori is their most heartfelt, thoughtful, and moving statement in decades.

Depeche Mode are still at the top of their game and ready to explore their vulnerabilities in new and intense ways. Memento Mori is not a one-listen album; take a few rounds to wrap your head around all the little details and let your favourite song change with every listen.

It is Depeche Mode’s most self-aware album in a long time – and their most memorable. At 50 minutes and 12 songs, the album is lean and humble, paying respect to the band’s past while also returning to the tension that made their best material so enjoyable.

On Memento Mori, Depeche Mode turn this philosophical reminder into a beautiful, raw, and passionate rebirth.

Fans of Depeche Mode can be happy to receive the band’s best offering of this century (though don’t get it twisted, ‘Playing The Angel’ is still a great record) but it’s unlikely they’ll change the minds of non-listeners, as foolish as such people are. The same ground is tread here, just in new shoes.

Not everything works. The aforementioned Always You leaves little impression and the clunky Caroline’s Monkey, which shoehorns in every hackneyed junkie reference you can think of (“holes in her skin”, “ice in her veins”, monkeys on backs, etc, etc), is just about rescued from oblivion thanks, again, to its auditory nod to Kraftwerk’s locomotive-fixated sixth studio album. But otherwise, Memento Mori is brimming and sometimes soaring with immediate pop songs.

‘Memento Mori’ is comfortably their best album this side of the millennium, and, most importantly, a testament to creativity and friendship. The music world is richer for it.

By avoiding clutter, both in lyrics and in instrumentation, each song feels like inhaling a gulp of cold, crisp air.

These songs have an impressive vehemency, whether showcasing uncanny AI balladry on Soul With Me, industrial wall-of-sound on Speak To Me and People Are Good, electro-pop dissociation on My Favourite Stranger, or hydraulically pumped Brel-drama on Don't Say You Love Me. [May 2023, p.85]

Acknowledging mortality defines much of Memento Mori, but it never feels heavy handed or even all that sullen. Some of the tracks even sound upbeat. ... As always with Depeche Mode, everything counts in large amounts, and on Memonto Mori, the stakes feel bigger than ever.

Their most powerful work this century. It's the sound of a band entering a final act with a renewed sense of purpose, and sharp, sober new focus. [May 2023, p.26]

There’s warmth in the album’s fusion of industrial grind with delicate melody, and producer James Ford sparks a revivifying weirdness in songs such as My Cosmos Is Mine. For a record preoccupied by death, its big heart bursts with life.

Memento Mori’s biggest flaw is the middle section, as the respective songs don’t really stand out. Of course, they remain decent at the very least, “Before We Drown” being perhaps the one to return to most. Other than that, this is another solid Depeche Mode album with a handful of highlights that fans should definitely add to their playlists.

Memento Mori is not the hooded masterpiece of Music for the Masses or the hits cache of Violator. But it does signal that there are new ways yet for Gahan and Gore to at least approach their old magic.

Like the Seventh Seal, Memento Mori raises questions but never brings resolution. ... I It is a testament to their continued relevance and the unexpected wonder in remembering our shared condition.