If ‘Paper Monsters’, former Depeche Mode frontman Dave Gahan’s 2003 debut solo album, served any useful purpose it was a simple confirmation that its author still had a steady pulse – he of course infamously died for a couple of minutes in 1996 after a heroin overdose, the culmination of years of somewhat losing the plot. But beyond that it just really met Depeche Mode’s fans halfway and gave them something physical to hold, a photocopy of a heyday now passed. I mean, for god’s sake! He actually died! You can forgive him the melancholy, the pale electronica and detached atmospherics fitted really, but where was the weight, drama, the tension, the significance? Depeche Mode always sounded significant and he’d not strayed sufficiently far enough to suggest this wasn’t a requirement any more. 4 years have seen a distinctive firming of his character though. Wherever it was then, it’s unmistakably omnipresent now.
This is the album his solo career should have debuted with. This is an album that would have stood tall in the early 90s, were he not otherwise engaged losing his mind. The industrial heart-beat of Nine Inch Nail’s finest moments wouldn’t have existed without his influence and they are in turn evoked here as peers, though Dave Gahan 2007 holds a better posture than Trent Reznor’s synthetic current form. This album wouldn’t have done badly in 80s stadia either, though would perhaps have been a touch too dark for the mainstream palette. But either way, he was tied up then setting precedents. So now will do nicely.
From the off, ‘Say Something’ sounds so looming, expansive and intensely gradual it could have feasibly been recorded in a massive warehouse on the dark side of the moon, Dave performing weightless somersaults amid looping electronic licks, streamlined electric guitar and disparate strings. ‘Kingdom’, ‘Use You’ and ‘Deeper and Deeper’s synthesised industrial poundings meanwhile leave quite certain boot marks in the earth, the focussed anger and breathy, aching emotion recalling NIN’s classic ‘Downward Spiral’. And while this certainly isn’t the only reason these intensely crafted songs sound machine-pumped to efficient perfection, his commanding, frugal tenor is still his greatest asset and responsible for anchoring some of the more ambient moments down when otherwise they would have drifted into the ether. He saves the best for almost last, penultimate track ‘A Little Lie’ is, as they say, one of the best Depeche Mode never wrote. Justifying his reputation, legacy and very existence, ‘Hourglass’ is a triumph.